Georgia O’Keeffe painted a pineapple after a 1939 commission from the Dole company.
In 1939, the Hawaiian Pineapple Company, later known as Dole, invited O’Keeffe to Hawaii to create images connected with the company’s products. She spent about nine weeks in Hawaii, visiting plantations and making paintings and drawings of plants, flowers, and landscapes.
The commission produced a group of works, but the requested pineapple became a memorable part of the story. O’Keeffe did not receive a pineapple until near the end of her stay, leaving her only a short time to paint it. The resulting work is commonly titled “Pineapple Bud.”
Her Hawaiian paintings are less familiar to the public than her New Mexico scenes, yet they show her continuing interest in close observation and unusual botanical forms. The commission also demonstrates that O’Keeffe’s commercial assignment did not prevent her from interpreting the subject through her own modernist style.