Yellow Hickory Leaves with Daisy

Georgia O'KeeffeWW-1928-029409

1928·Oil on canvas·76.5 × 101.6 cm (29 7/8 × 39 7/8 in.)

<p>In <em>Yellow Hickory Leaves with Daisy</em>, Georgia O’Keeffe painted the vividly colored leaves and white flower at a significantly magnified scale. She was inspired by the foliage she found on her walks in the summer around Lake George in upstate New York. Although she represented the leaves with carefully realistic handling, the close focus underscores their abstract qualities. She hoped that the strangely monumental subjects would inspire viewers to, as she said, “be surprised into taking time to look” at them in a new way.</p>

Catalogue

Year: 1928
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 76.5 × 101.6 cm (29 7/8 × 39 7/8 in.)
Collection: Art Institute of Chicago
Artist: Georgia O'Keeffe

Artist

Georgia O'Keeffe

Painting

One of the most successful artists of the 20th century, Georgia O’Keeffe enjoyed a long and varied artistic career in which she introduced many new aesthetic perspectives and approaches in Modernism. Born in Wisconsin in 1887, she studied at the Art Institute of Chicago beginning in 1905 before taking teaching position in South Carolina, Virginia and Texas. She moved to New York City in 1918 at the age of 31 where she became part of the artistic milieu of her future husband photographer Alfred Stieglitz. In these years, she became fascinated with the fast pace of city life and produced paintings highlighting the city’s soaring skyscrapers as symbols of the modern world.

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