Georgia O’Keeffe’s Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1 sold for $44.4 million in 2014.
The 1932 painting was sold at Sotheby’s in New York on November 20, 2014. Its price was widely reported as a record for a work by a female artist at auction. The painting presents a large white jimson weed flower against a dark background, magnifying a single natural form.
The sale drew attention not only to O’Keeffe but also to the historic underrepresentation of women artists in major auction records. Jimson Weed is sometimes confused with her red poppy paintings, but the works depict different flowers and belong to separate series. O’Keeffe’s flower paintings often use close-up scale, encouraging viewers to see familiar botanical forms as monumental abstract compositions.