Spring Blooms reminds of Georgia O’Keeffe Red Canna Paintings

I first encountered Georgia O’Keeffe’s paintings during my undergraduate studies at the College of New Rochelle. Goergia O’Keeffe (November 15, 1887 - March 6, 1986) was an American painter who was among the most influential figures in American Modernism. She is best known for her large-format paintings of natural subjects, especially flowers and bones, and for her depictions of New York City skyscrapers and architectural and landscape forms unique to northern New Mexico. 

I thought her flower paintings were magical. I thought they were her imaginations, and not rendition of something existing in the natural world. And I loved them. Rich rich bursts of color, pure and detailed. She presented the colors I loved deeply. Saturated red. Hues of pinks, yellows and purple.

This year my spring garden bloomed.  I was astounded by the beauty of the flowers. Each morning that a new flower bloomed, presented a surprise and an ecstasy unfurled. Details emerged, like the velvet feel of the red rose petals, and the glistening dew drops on the pink rose. Just how saturated the yellow sunflower was, with an inner mandala shape and graduations of dark green to chocolate brown to orange to bright yellow . The stamen of the gladiolus was a rich deep purple, with hues of violet and magenta. Even more details emerged with close up digital photos of the flowers. Then it dawned on me, Goergia O’Keeffe paintings were realistic renditions of the flower details that many fail to appreciate. She spent time with the flowers. She truly gave meaning to the idiom “stop and smell the roses”.

GEORGIA O’KEEFFE goes on to describe her paintings as reported by the Marginalian; “I found that I could say things with colour and shapes that I couldn’t say in any other way things that I had no words for,” Georgia O’Keeffe (November 15, 1887–March 6, 1986) wrote in the foreword to a catalog for an exhibition of her work two decades before she became the first female artist honored with a retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art.

In a passage originally published in the exhibition catalog An American Place — which also gave us O’Keeffe’s serenade to blue — and later cited in Georgia O’Keeffe: The Poetry of Things (public library), she writes:

“A flower is relatively small. Everyone has many associations with a flower — the idea of flowers. You put out your hand to touch the flower — lean forward to smell it — maybe touch it with your lips almost without thinking — or give it to someone to please them. Still — in a way — nobody sees a flower — really — it is so small — we haven’t time — and to see takes time, like to have a friend takes time. If I could paint the flower exactly as I see it no one would see what I see because I would paint it small like the flower is small.

So I said to myself — I’ll paint what I see — what the flower is to me but I’ll 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.

Well — I made you take time to look at what I saw and when you took time to really notice my flower, you hung all your own associations with flowers on my flower and you write about my flower as if I think and see what you think and see of the flower — and I don’t.”

If I am the first to introduce you to Georgia O'Keeffe, behold her flower paintings within this article. You may learn more about the life and paintings of Georgia O’Keeffe by visiting The Georgia O’Keeffe Museum located in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

May I share my amateur flower photography, much beloved, as they come from my spring bloom garden 2026.