An iris appears in Georgia O'Keeffe's famous 1926 painting Black Iris.
O'Keeffe painted Black Iris in 1926, presenting the dark, ruffled center of an iris at an enlarged scale. The work belongs to her celebrated series of flower paintings, in which close framing encourages viewers to focus on color, contour, and organic form.
O'Keeffe frequently rejected the idea that her flower paintings should be reduced to symbolic interpretations. She emphasized looking closely at nature and suggested that flowers were often overlooked because people saw them too quickly. Her enlarged compositions made small or ordinary subjects visually commanding.
Black Iris is sometimes mixed up with Black Iris III, another O'Keeffe painting from the same general period. The subject remains an iris, while O'Keeffe's other famous flowers include poppies, calla lilies, and jimson weed.