Flowers were the subject Georgia O'Keeffe repeatedly depicted as enlarged natural forms in her flower series. She magnified blossoms so that petals, folds, and subtle color changes filled the picture plane.
O'Keeffe began making large-scale flower paintings in the 1920s. Works such as Black Iris III and Oriental Poppies turned familiar plants into near-abstract compositions. The close framing encouraged viewers to notice formal qualities—shape, rhythm, color, and texture—rather than treating the flower as a small decorative object.
Many observers interpreted the paintings symbolically, especially in relation to the artist's gender. O'Keeffe consistently resisted narrow claims that her flower images had one fixed sexual meaning. Her broader body of work also included buildings, bones, trees, clouds, and New Mexico landscapes, so flowers were an important subject, not the whole of her career.