An oil painting of an extreme close up, abstracted view of a red flower.

Red Cannas

Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986)

Date

1927
Object Type

Paintings
Medium

Oil on canvas
Dimensions

36 1/8 x 30 1/8 in.
Inscriptions

Verso:
u.c. on canvas in white paint: Georgia O'Keeffe \ 1927
u.r. on stretcher in ink: Georgia O'Keeffe-1927-Red Cannas
Credit Line

Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth, Texas
Accession Number

1986.11
Copyright

Public domain

By magnifying her botanical subjects, O’Keeffe transformed the traditional genre of still-life painting into something entirely fresh. She explained her reasoning for painting floral studies in this way: “I have painted what each flower is to me and I have painted it big enough so that others would see what I see.”

Her studies of plant life celebrate the dynamic colors and patterns found in nature and also commemorate her associations with people and places. She related the subject of red cannas with her husband, the photographer Alfred Stieglitz. The flowers blossomed in their garden at Lake George, a resort town in New York’s Adirondack Mountains where the Stieglitz family owned a summer house.

Location: Off view

See more by Georgia O'Keeffe

Educator Resources

How do artists use scale and proportion to create a unique composition?

In what ways do color, line, and shape affect the mood of a work of art?

How might a work of art, based on a natural object, compare to a scientific drawing of the same object?
All Levels

Give students viewfinders, objects, pencils, and paper. They will use their viewfinders to focus on one part of an object. They will then sketch a close-up of that section on their paper so that they can practice looking at very small details.

Take students outside to photograph nature using tablets or smartphones. Students should bring the lens very close to the object and look carefully to set up their composition before snapping a photograph.

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