Our lady of the Lily: Georgia O'Keeffe

One reason O’Keeffe was categorized as a female artist throughout the 1920s was that her primary subject matter during that period was flowers.

In the period from 1918 to 1932 O'Keeffe produced more than 200 flower paintings, in which common flowering plants such as roses, petunias, poppies, camellias, sunflowers, bleeding hearts and daffodils are accorded the same significance as rare blooms such as black irises and exotic orchids.

Miquel Covarrubias:  Our lady of the Lily: Georgia O'Keeffe

Indeed, he name became so synonymous with flowers, and with the calla lily in particular, that when Mexican artist Miquel Covarrubias caricatured O’Keeffe for a 1929 issue of the New Yorker, she was shown as ‘Our lady of the Lily: Georgia O'Keeffe’. Holding the single stem of a calla lily, she was a wry allusion to the holy Virgin.

O’Keeffe’s husband, Alfred Stieglitz, increased the attention, He arranged the sale of six of her calla lily paintings for $25,000 in 1928 – more than any other group of contemporary paintings had sold for up until then.

During this episode, however, O’Keeffe worked on paintings with other subjects as well, including one that was primarily male in more ways than one: skyscrapers.
Our lady of the Lily: Georgia O'Keeffe