"Oriental Poppies" (1927) is reproduced from 'Georgia O’Keeffe,' published to accompany the survey currently on view @museothyssen “Flowers – explicitly recognizable – first appeared in the artist’s work in 1919 in a series of watercolors based on calla lily motifs,” Didier Ottinger writes. “O’Keeffe’s interest in flowers as subject matter was stimulated by her visit to Charles Demuth, an artist belonging to the Stieglitz circle who had been painting them since 1905. During the 1920s, they became his main subjects. Demuth’s pictures convinced O’Keeffe of the artistic validity of flowers as motifs and encouraged her to explore the best style for turning them into a highly personal subject matter. From 1925, O’Keeffe depicted flowers from a closer viewpoint, so that they filled the whole picture space. This progression to close-up was brought about by the combined influence of photography and her attention to the phenomenology of the modern city. As a firsthand witness to the artistic revolution led by a new generation of photographers (Paul Strand, Edward Weston, Ansel Adams…) under the banner of ‘Straight Photography,’ she had plenty of time to meditate on what could be learned from their approach, in which the use of blow-up acted as both a formal and an emotional intensifier. O’Keeffe aspired to this intensification to adapt her art to the phenomena of the modern city: ‘In the twenties, huge buildings sometimes seemed to be going up overnight in New York. At that time I saw a painting by Fantin-Latour, a still life with flowers I found very beautiful, but I realized that were I to paint the same flowers so small, no one would look at them because I was unknown. So I thought I’ll make them big like the huge buildings going up.’” Read more via linkinbio. IMAGE CREDIT: "Oriental Poppies," 1927, Oil on canvas. 76.7 x 102.1 cm, Collection of the Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. Museum Purchase, 1937.1 © @okeeffemuseum #georgiaokeeffe #CatherineMillet @centrepompidou @fondationbeyeler #georgiaokeeffe #orientalpoppies #southwestart #georgiaokeeffeflowers https://www.instagram.com/p/CRPJpnnMnuD/?utm_medium=tumblr