Georgia O'Keeffe famously painted flowers in greatly enlarged close-up views.
Her flower paintings became some of the most recognizable images in American modernism. Works such as Black Iris III and Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1 present petals and centers at a scale far larger than viewers would normally see them. O'Keeffe said that people were too busy to look at flowers closely, so she painted them large enough to make them notice.
Critics often interpreted these paintings as symbolic or sexual images. O'Keeffe rejected the idea that critics could define her intentions solely through those interpretations. She described her process in terms of looking, selecting, enlarging, and making a form visible.
Flowers were only one part of her output. She also painted skyscrapers, leaves, shells, animal bones, doors, crosses, and desert landscapes. The flower images are therefore a major series within her career, not the complete definition of her art.