This monumental flower painting is one of O'Keeffe's early masterpieces. Enlarging the petals far beyond lifesize proportions, she forces the viewer to observe the small details that might otherwise be overlooked. When paintings from this group were first shown in 1924, even Alfred Stieglitz, her husband and dealer, was shocked by their audacity.
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Artwork Details
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Title:Black Iris
Artist:Georgia O'Keeffe (American, Sun Prairie, Wisconsin 1887–1986 Santa Fe, New Mexico)
Date:1926
Medium:Oil on canvas
Dimensions:36 in. × 29 7/8 in. (91.4 × 75.9 cm)
Classification:Paintings
Credit Line:Alfred Stieglitz Collection, 1969
Accession Number:69.278.1
the artist (1926–69; on extended loan to MMA, 1949–69; her gift as part of the Alfred Stieglitz Collection to MMA)
Intimate Gallery, New York. "Georgia O'Keeffe: Paintings, 1926," January 11–February 27, 1927, brochure no. 12 (as "The Dark Iris No. III").
New York. An American Place. "Georgia O'Keeffe: Paintings—New & Some Old," January 7–February 22, 1933, extended to March 15, 1933, brochure no. 18.
Art Institute of Chicago. "Georgia O'Keeffe," January 21–February 22, 1943, no. 15.
Museum of Modern Art, New York. "Georgia O'Keeffe: An Exhibition," May 14–August 25, 1946, no catalogue (checklist no. 19).
Museum of Modern Art, New York. "Alfred Stieglitz Exhibition: His Collection," June 10–August 31, 1947, no catalogue (checklist no. 77).
Art Institute of Chicago. "Alfred Stieglitz: His Photographs and His Collection," February 2–29, 1948, no catalogue (checklist; loan no. 47.664).
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "20th Century Painters: A Special Exhibition of Oils, Water Colors and Drawings Selected from the Collections of American Art in the Metropolitan Museum," June 16–October 29, 1950, unnum. brochure (p. 9; permanent loan from the artist).
Museum of Modern Art, New York. "From the Alfred Stieglitz Collection: An Extended Loan from the Metropolitan Museum of Art," May 22–August 12, 1951, no catalogue (checklist no. E.L.51.686; loan extended to June 9, 1958).
New York. Downtown Gallery. "Ten Paintings, Major Examples," October 7–November 2, 1957, unnum. brochure.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Fourteen American Masters: Paintings from Colonial Times to Today," October 16, 1958–January 4, 1959, no catalogue.
Dallas Museum of Fine Arts. "Directions in Twentieth Century American Painting," October 7–November 12, 1961, no. 32.
Minneapolis Institute of Art. "Four Centuries of American Art," November 27, 1963–January 19, 1964, unnumbered cat.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Three Centuries of American Painting," April 9–October 17, 1965, unnum. checklist.
Fort Worth. Amon Carter Museum of Western Art. "Georgia O'Keeffe: An Exhibition of the Work of the Artist from 1915 to 1966," March 17–May 8, 1966, unnumbered cat. (p. 28).
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. "Georgia O'Keeffe: An Exhibition of the Work of the Artist from 1915 to 1966," May 28–July 3, 1966, unnumbered cat.
Albuquerque. University of New Mexico Art Museum. "Georgia O'Keeffe," September 8–October 13, 1966, no catalogue.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "American Paintings, Drawings and Watercolors from the Museum's Collections," October 1–December 7, 1969, no catalogue.
New York. Whitney Museum of American Art. "Georgia O'Keeffe," October 8–November 29, 1970, no. 40.
Art Institute of Chicago. "Georgia O'Keeffe," January 6–February 7, 1971, no. 40.
San Francisco Museum of Art. "Georgia O'Keeffe," March 15–April 30, 1971, no. 40.
New York. Whitney Museum of American Art. "Reflections of Nature: Flowers in American Art," March 1–May 20, 1984, no. 138.
National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. "Georgia O'Keeffe: 1887–1986," November 1, 1987–February 21, 1988, no. 49.
Art Institute of Chicago. "Georgia O'Keeffe: 1887–1986," March 5–June 19, 1988, no. 49.
Dallas Museum of Art. "Georgia O'Keeffe: 1887–1986," July 31–October 16, 1988, no. 49.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Georgia O'Keeffe: 1887–1986," November 19, 1988–February 5, 1989, no. 49.
Los Angeles County Museum of Art. "Georgia O'Keeffe: 1887–1986," March 30–June 18, 1989, no. 49.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "14 Americans," July 16, 1990–January 2, 1991, no catalogue.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "American Painting: 1905–1950," April 19–October 7, 1991, no catalogue.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "American Still Life: 1915–1950," February 1, 1995–January 28, 1996, no catalogue.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Stieglitz and His Artists: Matisse to O'Keeffe," October 13, 2011–January 2, 2012, no. 183.
Waldo Frank, Lewis Mumford, Dorothy Norman, Paul Rosenfeld, and Harold Rugg, ed. America and Alfred Stieglitz: A Collective Portrait. Garden City, N. Y., 1934, pl. XXIA.
"Life is Painting for Artist Who Reveals Woman's Soul on Canvas." Newark Evening News (March 21, 1934), p. 18.
"Art: Woman from Sun Prairie." Time (February 8, 1943), pp. 42, 44, ill.
Thomas Craven. "American Painting." Studio 127 (June 1944), pp. 181, ill.
Georgia O'Keeffe. "Stieglitz: His Pictures Collected Him." New York Times (December 11, 1949), p. 24, ill.
James Thrall Soby inNew Art in America: Fifty Painters of the 20th Century. Ed. John I. H. Baur. Greenwich, Conn., 1957, ill. p. 109 (color).
Sheldon Cheney. The Story of Modern Art. Rev. and enl. ed. (1st ed, 1941). New York, 1958, p. 619, ill.
Henry Geldzahler. American Painting in the Twentieth Century. New York, 1965, pp. 130–31, ill.
Doris Reno. "Miami's Old 17th Century Friend Found Shining in a New Setting." Miami Herald (August 22, 1965), p. 21E.
Peter Plagens. "A Georgia O'Keeffe Retrospective in Texas." Artforum 4 (May 1966), p. 28, ill.
Dorothy Seiberling. "Horizons of a Pioneer: Georgia O'Keeffe in New Mexico." Life 64 (March 1, 1968), p. 48, ill.
George Heard Hamilton. "The Alfred Stieglitz Collection." Metropolitan Museum Journal 3 (1970), p. 392.
George M. Cohen. A History of American Art. New York, 1971, p. 177.
Charles Child Eldredge. "Georgia O'Keeffe: The Development of an American Modern." PhD diss., University of Minnesota, 1971, pp. xiv, 54, 250, fig. 30.
Nora B. Beeson. Guide to The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1972, p. 279.
Sam Hunter and John Jacobus. American Art of the 20th Century: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture. New York, 1973, p. 124, fig. 210 (upside down).
Henry Geldzahler in "Twentieth Century Art." The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Notable Acquisitions, 1965–1975. New York, 1975, p. 212, ill. (upside down).
John Russell. The Meanings of Modern Art. Vol. 10, America Redefined. New York, 1975, colorpl. II.
Georgia O'Keeffe. Georgia O'Keeffe. New York, 1976, text facing pl. 30, ill.
Lisa M. Messinger in "Twentieth Century Art." The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Notable Acquisitions, 1980–1981. New York, 1981, p. 66.
Lisa Mintz Messinger. "Georgia O'Keeffe." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 42 (Fall 1984), pp. 21–22, 60, fig. 21.
Jan Garden Castro. The Art and Life of Georgia O'Keeffe. New York, 1985, pp. 62, 87.
Sasha M. Newman. Georgia O'Keeffe. Washington, D. C., 1985, p. 22, pl. 10.
Erika Billeter. "Georgia O'Keeffe's Bilder." Du (May 1987), pp. 44–45, ill.
Nicholas Callaway, ed. Georgia O'Keeffe: One Hundred Flowers. New York, 1987, no. 2, frontis. ill.
Oswaldo Rodriguez Roque et al. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Vol. 9, The United States of America. New York, 1987, p. 130, colorpl. 98, calls it "Black Iris, III".
Matt Damsker. "The Met Goes Modern: New Wing a Treasure Box, Even If Collection Has Gaps." Hartford Courant (February 11, 1987), p. C7.
Sylvia Hochfield. "Thoroughly Modern Met." Art News 86 (February 1987), p. 115.
Lisa Mintz Messinger. Georgia O'Keeffe. New York, 1988, pp. 38, 40–41, fig. 27.
Barbara Buhler Lynes. O'Keeffe, Stieglitz, and the Critics. Ann Arbor, Mich., 1989, pp. 94, 335 n. 5, p. 339 n. 10, fig. 15.
Sarah Whitaker Peters. Becoming O'Keeffe: The Early Years. New York, 1991, p. 345 n. 32, p. 348 n. 70.
Charles Child Eldredge. Georgia O'Keeffe. New York, 1991, pp. 88, 90, overleaf facing p. 90.
Christopher Merrill and Ellen Bradbury, ed. From the Faraway Nearby: Georgia O'Keeffe as Icon. Reading, Mass., 1992, pp. 49–50, fig. 9.
Elizabeth Montgomery. Georgia O'Keeffe. New York, 1993, p. 38, ill.
Maria Costantino. Georgia O'Keeffe. New York, 1994, pp. 87, 99, ill. and ill. p. 40 (installation photo).
Britta Benke. Georgia O'Keeffe, 1887–1986: Blumen in der Wüste. Cologne, 1994, pp. 36–37, ill.
Jula Dech. Georgia O'Keeffe: Gemälde. Munich, 1995, unpaginated, fig. 14.
Anne Middleton Wagner. Three Artists (Three Women): Modernism and the Art of Hesse, Krasner, and O'Keeffe. Berkeley, 1996, pp. xi, 63–64, pl. 7.
H. W. Janson and Anthony F. Janson. History of Art. 5th rev. ed. (1st ed., 1962). New York, 1997, p. 817, fig. 1074.
Robert Hughes. American Visions: The Epic History of Art in America. New York, 1997, p. 394, fig. 236.
Bram Dijkstra. Georgia O'Keeffe and the Eros of Place. Princeton, 1998, p. 227.
Barbara Buhler Lynes. Georgia O'Keeffe: Catalogue Raisonné. New Haven, Conn., 1999, vol. 1, p. 316, no. 557.
Eleanor Munro. Originals: American Women Artists. Reprint (1st ed., 1979). [Boulder, Co.], 2000, p. 91.
Lisa Mintz Messinger. Georgia O'Keeffe. London, 2001, pp. 72, 74, fig. 46.
Peter-Cornell Richter. Georgia O'Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz. New York, 2001, p. 79, ill.
Barbara Buhler Lynes with Russell Bowman. O'Keeffe's O'Keeffes: The Artist's Collection. Exh. cat., Milwaukee Art Museum. New York, 2001, pp. 50, 60, 64, 165 (app. 1), 167 (app. 1), 169 (app. 2), fig. 19.
Vivien Green Fryd. Art and the Crisis of Marriage: Edward Hopper and Georgia O'Keeffe. Chicago, 2003, p. 121, pl. 8 between pp. 152–53.
Hunter Drohojowska-Philp. Full Bloom: The Art and Life of Georgia O'Keeffe. New York, 2004, pp. 266, 273, ill. between pp. 376–77.
Sigrid Maria Groh. Black Iris. Berlin, 2004, unpaginated, ill.
Janet Souter. Georgia O'Keeffe. New York, 2005, p. 94, ill.
Susan Wright. Georgia O'Keeffe: An Eternal Spirit. (1st ed., 1996). [New York], 2006, p. 62, ill.
Jonathan Stuhlman and Barbara Buhler Lynes. Georgia O'Keeffe: Circling Around Abstraction. Exh. cat., Norton Museum of Art. West Palm Beach, 2007, p. 45, fig. 6.
Lisa Mintz Messinger inStieglitz and His Artists: Matisse to O'Keeffe. The Alfred Stieglitz Collection in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Ed. Lisa Mintz Messinger. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2011, pp. 198–99, 279, no. 183, ill. (color).
Sarah Greenough, ed. My Faraway One: Selected Letters of Georgia O'Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz. Vol. 1, 1915–1933. New Haven, Conn., 2011, pp. 457, 672, 725.
Isabelle Duvernois inStieglitz and His Artists: Matisse to O'Keeffe. The Alfred Stieglitz Collection in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Ed. Lisa Mintz Messinger. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2011, p. 193.
Barbara Buhler Lynes and Jonathan Weinberg, ed. Shared Intelligence: American Painting and the Photograph. Exh. cat., Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, Ohio. Berkeley and Santa Fe, 2011, p. 82, ill.
Katherine Hoffman. Alfred Stieglitz: A Legacy of Light. New Haven, 2011, fig. 107 (color).
Kathryn Calley Galitz. The Metropolitan Museum of Art Masterpiece Paintings. New York, 2016, p. 524, ill. (color), colorpl. 445.
Massimiliano Gioni et al., ed. Judy Chicago: Herstory. Exh. cat., New Museum, New York. London, 2023, p. 292, ill. p. 267 (color).
Georgia O'Keeffe (American, Sun Prairie, Wisconsin 1887–1986 Santa Fe, New Mexico)
1917
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