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Georgia O'Keeffe

Flower Abstraction, 1924

About the Artwork

Flower Abstraction is among the earliest of Georgia O’Keeffe’s large-scale flower paintings, which she continued to produce through the 1950s. In these paintings, O’Keeffe harnessed the technique of close cropping that she had learned from modernist photography, especially the work of Paul Strand, with her own pictorial vocabulary of undulating forms and soft gradations of tone. In this way, she transformed her botanical subjects into compositions that oscillate between abstraction and representation. The magnified flower in Flower Abstraction seems to extend beyond its frames, as if without measurable boundaries. By utilizing a small, ordinary flower to suggest the immensity of nature, O’Keeffe sought to undermine her viewers’ habitual ways of looking. As she remarked, “Paint it big and they will be surprised into taking time to look at it—I will make even busy New Yorkers take time to see what I see of flowers.”

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The Whitney Print Shop offers exclusive custom reproductions of artworks in the collections and exhibitions of the Whitney Museum of American Art. Hand-made in the USA using gallery-quality materials, we create prints as true to the original work as possible, using strict color management protocols and state-of-the-art printing technology.

Selection
Many of the works offered through this store are exclusive and not available anywhere else. We are continually adding new artworks to our offering, so be sure to check back regularly as you build your own gallery. A variety of molding styles means our custom framed prints can match any type of decor.