Georgia O'Keeffe famously enlarged flowers in many paintings.
From the 1920s onward, O'Keeffe produced large-scale images of flowers, including irises, poppies, calla lilies, and jimson weed. By magnifying individual blossoms, she made viewers confront shapes, folds, colors, and spaces that might otherwise be overlooked.
O'Keeffe rejected the idea that her flower paintings had one fixed symbolic interpretation. Critics often read sexual meanings into the works, but she emphasized close looking and the fact that people could not truly see a flower in detail unless it was enlarged.
Flowers were only one part of her practice. She also painted New York buildings, New Mexico landscapes, animal bones, shells, and abstract forms. Their prominence nevertheless made enlarged blossoms one of her signature subjects.