What was the first Georgia O'Keeffe painting sold for more than $40 million at auction?
Answer
Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1
Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1 was the first Georgia O'Keeffe painting sold for more than $40 million at auction.
The 1932 painting sold at Sotheby's in New York on November 20, 2014, for $44.4 million including the buyer's premium. The result established a record for a work by a female artist at auction at that time. The buyer was Walmart heiress Alice Walton, whose Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art later exhibited the painting.
The image shows a large white jimson weed flower, a subject O'Keeffe rendered with close attention to curved petals and tonal shifts. Its scale and clarity helped make it one of her most recognizable flower paintings.
The work is sometimes confused with Black Iris III, another highly valued O'Keeffe flower painting. Black Iris III sold for a substantial sum, but the 2014 Sotheby's sale of Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1 set the specific record described here.