Exhibition Guide

Pink Tulip

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    Looking at... a Flower?

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    Ways of Interpreting O'Keeffe's Paintings

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About Georgia O'Keeffe

(American, 1887-1986)

Art Object Info

Medium:
Oil on canvas
Size:
Width: 15 5/8"
Height: 11 3/4"
Date:
1926

With a close-cropped focus on her subject and glowing color, Georgia O’Keeffe used smoothly blended brushwork to present the tulip as a living, changing blossom. Critics often wrote that her flower paintings evoked the human body. Here, O’Keeffe captured the way tulips open and close in response to heat or cold and light or darkness, as well as the brevity of their sculptural beauty as they bloom and fade—a powerful metaphor for personal growth and change. The artist completed more than 200 paintings of flowers during her lifetime.

Bequest of Mabel Garrison Siemonn, in Memory of her Husband, George Siemonn BMA 1964.11.13

Pink Tulip

Georgia O'Keeffe
(American, 1887-1986)
Date:
1926
Medium:
Oil on canvas
Size:
Width: 15 5/8"
Height: 11 3/4"

With a close-cropped focus on her subject and glowing color, Georgia O’Keeffe used smoothly blended brushwork to present the tulip as a living, changing blossom. Critics often wrote that her flower paintings evoked the human body. Here, O’Keeffe captured the way tulips open and close in response to heat or cold and light or darkness, as well as the brevity of their sculptural beauty as they bloom and fade—a powerful metaphor for personal growth and change. The artist completed more than 200 paintings of flowers during her lifetime.

Bequest of Mabel Garrison Siemonn, in Memory of her Husband, George Siemonn BMA 1964.11.13