O’Keeffe, Georgia (1887-1986)
Dark Abstraction
1924
Oil on canvas, 64.5 x 53.7 cm
Saint Louis Art Museum, St. Louis
Despite this painting’s modest size, its abstracted, organic forms evoke a monumentality and reverence for nature. Delicate folds of red and green call to mind the velvety, sensual surface and shapes of flower petals. Or, the dramatic plummet of the white line suggests a deep cleft in the earth’s shifting plates. One of the most recognized American artists of the 20th century, Georgia O’Keeffe often selected details of nature as her subjects and enlarged or distilled them until they took on a new appearance. (SLAM)