O’Keeffe, Georgia (1887-1986)
The White Flower (White Trumpet Flower)
1932
Oil on canvas, 76 x 101 cm
San Diego Museum of Art, San Diego
Despite the influence of many established artists, O’Keeffe was able to develop her own distinctive response to modernism, separating herself from her contemporaries through her focused study of the natural world and, specifically, the copious canvases in which she presented flowers. She often enlarged flowers, making a single bloom dominate the entire pictorial space. In The White Trumpet Flower, O’Keeffe explores the beauty of nature and emphasizes formal qualities such as shape, color, and line. The independence O’Keeffe exuded in her paintings was reflected in her creative practice as she refined her artistic process and kept to a consistent regime. She stretched and primed her own canvases, kept cardboard squares of her favorite colors, which she typically used to select her color palette before beginning a work, and often visualized a work completely before she began painting. (SDMA)