What was the name of Georgia O’Keeffe’s 1932 painting of a white flower with a yellow center?
Answer
Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1
Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1 is Georgia O’Keeffe’s 1932 painting of a white flower with a yellow center.
The painting depicts a jimson weed, also called Datura or moonflower, enlarged so that its trumpet-shaped bloom fills the canvas. O’Keeffe painted it in 1932 after receiving the flower from her friend and photographer Maria Chabot.
The work became famous for its scale, clean contours, and restrained white-and-green palette. In 2014, it sold at Sotheby’s for $44.4 million, making it the most expensive painting by a woman sold at auction at that time.
It is not a white rose or an iris. Jimson weed is a toxic plant, and O’Keeffe’s close-up treatment turns a common Southwestern flower into a monumental modernist subject.