Georgia O'Keeffe completed Black Iris in 1926.
Black Iris is an oil painting showing the dark, folded center of an iris flower in close-up. O'Keeffe enlarged natural forms so dramatically that viewers had to confront shape, color, and surface rather than merely identify the subject. The painting is often cited as a powerful example of her mature flower style.
The work has also generated debates about symbolic interpretation. Some critics have read the flower's central form as sexual imagery, while O'Keeffe resisted efforts to reduce her paintings to fixed meanings. Her own statements emphasized the need to look closely at flowers because their small scale made people overlook them.
Black Iris belongs to a group of flower paintings that made O'Keeffe famous during the 1920s. It should not be confused with Black Iris III, another related work from the same year.