Black iris III

Georgia O'keeffe became famous in the first place, thanks to their floral works. In November 2014, her painting "Jimson weed/White flower No. 1" was sold at Sotheby's auction for a record amount of 44.4 million dollars, becoming the most expensive work of art created by a woman. She was able to look into the very essence of this natural beauty, to capture the combination of fragility and grandeur, unique creations of nature. Her paintings are almost frightening with its openness and frankness, they want to look at greedily, delving into the details, but there is a strange instinctive desire to look away shyly, like accidentally become a witness to something too intimate and intimate.

Perhaps that is why Georgia O'keeffe all my life had to fight back from art critics and commentators, usmotrevshih in her paintings exclusively a manifestation of feminine sensuality and sexuality. In fact, the artist, in her own words, just wanted to make the audience – including always busy and concerned new Yorkers – for a few minutes to break away from the many Affairs and to stay: "Nobody actually sees the flowers – they are too small. We have no time for this, and to see takes time, like to become friends.". Therefore, the artist wrote the flowers as she saw them, but in order for other people to see them through her eyes, they had to increase hundreds of times.

In the works of O'keeffe no pastoral daisies or roses boudoir. The artist is very fond of Calla lilies (which have become her "hallmark"), Cannas, petunias and orchids. And among the irises she valued black, only in new York they can be found in flower shops only once a year – in the spring for a couple of weeks. Therefore, the O'keeffe's work with irises valued much higher than the others, because these are capricious and short-lived flowers were too rare guests in her paintings.

Author: Eugene Sidelnikov