Publish at August 25 2025 Updated August 25 2025
For over a century, the works of American painter Georgia O’Keeffe have captivated art lovers worldwide, thanks to her transcendent use of color and line that was unlike any of her contemporaries. O’Keeffe had an eye for the sensual, and for finding the fantastic in the mundane, and her ability to bring this to canvas after canvas over seventy years has led to an enduring reputation as one of America’s greatest artists.
Spolia Magazine has assembled a short overview of some of O’Keeffe’s most notable works.
1924 - Oil on Board
O’Keeffe painted several renderings of the red canna lily, but her 1924 rendition is perhaps the most vibrant and flagrant of them all. Painted in her trademark tight focus style, Red Canna (1924) is a riot of color, reds and oranges and yellows being the primary palette with pops of lilac drawing the eye to the heart of the piece. It’s lushly dimensional, all curves and color, absolutely stunning.
This painting is thought to be held in a private collection and is not on display.
1928 - Oil on Canvas
Perhaps O’Keeffe’s boldest floral work, Oriental Poppies depicts two huge, abundantly ruffled poppies in deep crimson and orange shades that deepen to a velvety dark purple in the heart of the blossoms. The effect of the blazing use of color, the tight focus, and the sheer size of the work–the canvas is nearly four feet wide–mesmerizes viewers, enticing them to look closely and really see the poppies, every petal and pistil and stamen.
This painting is currently on display at the Weisman Art Museum of Minneapolis.
1927 - Oil on Canvas
Though perhaps best known for her nature works, O’Keeffe also liked to work in the angular, industrial-flavored Precisionist style. After moving to New York City to live in a 30th floor apartment at the Shelton Hotel, O’Keeffe painted a series of paintings depicting the skyscrapers she could see from her window. Radiator Building in particular is a sharply realistic, geometrically detailed work, rendered largely in black and pale blue, with waves of pale jade green smoke and a stark red light providing some of the only bright coloration. The painting is an imposing one in its sharpness and angularity, a great contrast to her more fluid florals.
It is thought that this particular skyscraper painting, created during a rocky period of O’Keeffe’s marriage to photographer Alfred Stieglitz, is in fact a kind of visual indictment of Stieglitz. It is currently co-owned by Fisk University and the Crystal Bridges Museum of Art, and it is not on display.
1935 - Oil on Canvas
O’Keeffe’s focus on natural themes extended beyond florals; after first visiting New Mexico in 1929, she became fascinated with animal skulls and bones, and these motifs would recur throughout her career. New Mexico would revive her after a difficult fallow period, and this painting would launch her into an entirely new period in her artistic career.
Ram’s Head depicts the realistically detailed bleached skull of a ram with long, curved horns in an almost surreal way, hung against a backdrop of a turbulently cloudy gray sky and hovering over a mountainous desert landscape. In a somewhat whimsical touch, a yellow-hearted white hollyhock blossom in full bloom hangs just below one of the ram’s horns.
This painting is owned by the Brooklyn Museum in New York, and it is not currently on display.
1936 - Oil on Linen
Vibrant and fresh, calling to mind springtime and rebirth upon first glance, Jimson Weed stands out amongst O’Keeffe’s numerous floral paintings in a number of ways. The blue-green-white color palette is a contrast to the bold colorations of Oriental Poppies and Red Canna. It’s also, quite unusually for O’Keeffe, painted on linen rather than canvas. It’s a magnified floral, focused on a cluster of four jimson blooms, but she drew back from the heart of the blossoms enough to also include a swirling halo of green leaves.
This wasn’t O’Keeffe’s first painting of jimson weed blossoms, but it is the only one that was specifically commissioned by cosmetics magnate Elizabeth Arden to hang in an exercise room in her new Arden Sports Salon. Today, it is on display at the Indianapolis Museum of Art.
1923 - Oil on Canvas
Grey Lines is one of O’Keeffe’s most famous works, and one that is often interpreted suggestively, an interpretation that the artist herself flatly refuted on multiple occasions. It’s a beautiful piece–possibly a close-up look at a type of lily–rendered in delicate colors, gentle shading, and sinuous curves. It has an incredible amount of depth and dimension that makes it appear nearly real and ready to be plucked from the canvas. O’Keeffe painted flowers at close range, with a tight focus that allowed her to really refine the amount of detail she could show, making the audience see flowers in a way not normally available to them.
This painting is currently on display at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston.
1926 - Oil on Canvas
A great lover of flowers throughout her lifetime, O’Keeffe seemed to especially love the rare and delicate black iris flower, which she could only obtain at limited times in New York. She painted it a few times, with her most notable rendering being Black Iris III.
Black Iris III–now referred to simply as Black Iris due to its greater prominence over its seven or more sister paintings–is a darker painting, mostly shades of gray and black with gentle central washes of brighter blush pink and maroon. O’Keeffe’s clever brushwork and eye for color give the painting an almost velvety look, making it feel approachable despite the darker color palette.
This painting is currently on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.
Georgia O’Keeffe passed away in 1986 at the age of 98 in her beloved adopted home state of New Mexico. Following her death, her estate founded the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum in Abiquiu and Santa Fe. Her incredible artistry and legendary body of work remain alive here and in museums and collections worldwide, an everlasting testament to her talent and genius.
Illustration : Par Georgia O'Keeffe — Christie's, Domaine public
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