Black Iris (painting)

Black Iris, sometimes called Black Iris III,[1] is a 1926 oil painting by Georgia O'Keeffe.[2] Art
historian Linda Nochlin interpreted Black Iris as a morphological metaphor for female
genitalia.[3][4] O'Keeffe rejected such interpretations in a 1939 text accompanying an exhibition
of her work by writing: "Well—I made you take time to look at what I saw and when you took time
to really notice my flower you hung all your own associations with flowers on my flower and you
write about my flower as if I think and see what you think and see of the flower—and I don't."[5]
She attempted to do away with sexualized readings of her work by adding a lot of detail.[6]
 Black Iris

Black Iris, oil on canvas, 36 x 29 7/8 inches, 1926,

Alfred Stieglitz Collection, Metropolitan Museum of Art

Artist Georgia O'Keeffe

Year 1926

Medium Oil on canvas

Subject floral motif

Dimensions 91.4 cm × 75.9 cm (36 in × 29 7/8 in)

Location Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, NY

Accession 69.278.1

Website Black Iris, The Met (http://www.metmuseum.org/to

ah/works-of-art/69.278.1/)

It was first exhibited at the Intimate Gallery, New York from January 11–February 27, 1927,
where it was catalogued as DARK IRIS NO. 3.[7] Unlike her previous shows, this show was largely
devoid of the colourful paintings for which she had received critical acclaim.[8] Lewis Mumford
commented: "Yesterday O'Keeffe's exhibition opened … the show is strong: one long, loud blast
of sex, sex in youth, sex in adolescence, sex in maturity, sex as gaudy as "Ten Nights in a
Whorehouse," and sex as pure as the vigils of the vestal virgins, sex bulging, sex tumescent, sex
deflated. After this description you'd better not visit the show: inevitably you'll be a little
disappointed. For perhaps only half the sex is on the walls; the rest is probably in me."[9] The
painting remained in the collection of the artist from 1926 to 1969. It was on extended loan to
the Metropolitan Museum of Art from 1949 to 1969, when it was donated as part of the Alfred
Stieglitz Collection to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.[2] The title changed in 1991 from Black
Iris III to Black Iris.[10]

Exhibition history

1927 Intimate Gallery, New York, Georgia O’Keeffe: Paintings, 1926 as The Dark Iris No. III

1933 at An American Place as Black Iris.

1943 in Chicago

1946 at MoMA, New York

1948 at MoMA, New York

1950 at the Metropolitan Museum, New York

1957 Downtown – Ten, New York

1961 Dallas

1963 Minneapolis

1965 Metropolitan Museum, New York

1966 Albuquerque

1966 Amon Carter Museum of Western Art, Fort Worth, Texas, Georgia O'Keeffe: An Exhibition
of the Work of the Artist from 1915 to 1966

1970 Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, Georgia O'Keeffe as Black Iris.[11]

1987 Washington

Formal analysis

O'Keeffe uses a variety of colors in order to create Black Iris, although her focus is on darker
shades. She implements black, purple, and maroon to detail the center and lower petals of the
iris, while using pink, gray, and white when detailing the upper petals of the flower. O'Keeffe
blends outwardly in order to soften the outer edges of the painting. With the use of white and
other bright colors, she is able to bring light into the image, despite the lack of a light source.
O'Keeffe was intent on light and its importance in presenting the organic beauty of her subjects.
Her art demonstrates her belief in the inner vitalism of nature and her association of this force
with light.[12]

Related paintings

O'Keeffe began painting the centres of flowers in 1924.[13][14] The first show of her enlarged
flowers was at the Anderson Galleries in 1926.[15] The black irises were a recurring subject: She
painted another oil called The Black Iris (CR 558), also known as The Dark Iris No. II and Dark Iris,
a small (9x7") oil in 1926.[16] In 1927, she also created Dark Iris No. III, a pastel on paper.[13] Iris,
from 1929 is a 32x12" is in the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center. She returned to the black iris
in 1936, with Black Iris II [Black Iris VI, 1936] (36x24").[17]

List of related paintings

Black Iris; The Dark Iris No. 1, 1926, (CR 556), Oil on Canvas, 16x12" (40.6x30.5), private
collection, 1994

Black Iris; The Dark Iris No. 3, 1926, (CR 557), Oil on Canvas, 36x29 7/8 (91.4x75.9),
Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1969

The Black Iris; The Dark Iris No. II; Dark Iris, 1926, (CR 558), 9x7" (22.9x17.8), Collection of
Aaron I. Fleischman, 1991

Dark Iris; Dark Iris No. 1 1927, (CR 583) 32x12 (81.3x30.5), Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center
(FA 1954.4)

Dark Iris No. III; Dark Iris No. 3; Dark Iris, No. 3, 1927 (CR 602), Pastel on wove paper, Georgia
O'Keeffe Museum (1997.04.07)[18]

Black Iris; Black Iris – VII; Small Black Iris, (CR 883), 1936 Oil on Canvas (19 1/2 x 16"), private
collection, 1996[18][19]

Untitled (Iris), 1936 (CR 884), Graphite on wove paper 9x6 (22.9x15.2), private collection,
1987[18]

Black Iris VI; Black Iris II, 1936, (CR 885), Oil on Canvas (36 x 24) Collection: Curtis Galleries,
Minneapolis, Minnesota, 1998[18]

References
 1. " "Georgia O'Keeffe": The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, v. 42, no. 2 (Fall, 1984) | MetPublications |
The Metropolitan Museum of Art" (http://www.metmuseum.org/art/metpublications/Georgia_O_Keeffe_Th
e_Metropolitan_Museum_of_Art_Bulletin_v_42_no_2_Fall_1984#) . www.metmuseum.org. Retrieved
2017-01-17.

2. "Georgia O'Keeffe | Black Iris | The Met"(http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/489813) .

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, i.e. The Met Museum. Retrieved 16 January 2017.

3. Nochlin, Linda; Reilly, Maura (2015). "Some Women Realists: Part 1". Women artists: the Linda Nochlin
reader. pp. 76–85. ISBN 978-0-500-23929-2.

4. Tessler, Nira (2015-11-25). Flowers and Towers: Politics of Identity inthe Art of the American "New
Woman". Cambridge Scholars Publishing.ISBN 978-1-4438-8623-9.

5. Quotations related to Georgia O'Keeffe at Wikiquote

6. Smith, Roberta (13 August 2009). "Partners in Abstraction, Viewed in Tandem" (https://www.nytimes.com/
2009/08/14/arts/design/14dove.html) . The New York Times. Retrieved 16 January 2017.

7. Lynes, Barbara Buhler; O'Keeffe, Georgia (1999-01-01). Georgia O'Keeffe: the catalogue raisonné. London;
New Haven; Washington; Abiquiu, New Mexico: Yale University Press ; National Gallery of art ; The Georgia
0' Keeffe Foundation. p. 1117.ISBN 0300081766. OCLC 959100115 (https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/95910
0115) .

8. Drohojowska-Philp, Hunter (2004-09-17).Full Bloom: The Art and Life of Georgia O'Keeffe (https://archive.o
rg/details/fullbloomart00droh) . W. W. Norton & Company. p. 273 (https://archive.org/details/fullbloomart
00droh/page/273) . ISBN 9780393343090. "black iris availability new york O'Keeffe."

9. Robinson, Roxana; O'Keeffe, Georgia (1989-01-01). Georgia O'Keeffe: A Life (https://books.google.com/boo

ks?id=_dRU2c1LPcYC&q=Mumford+critic+O'Keeffe&pg=PA282) . UPNE. ISBN 9780874519068.

10. Lynes, Barbara Buhler; O'Keeffe, Georgia (1999-01-01). Georgia O'Keeffe: the catalogue raisonné. London;
New Haven; Washington; Abiquiu, New Mexico: Yale University Press; National Gallery of art; The Georgia
0'Keeffe Foundation. ISBN 0300081766. OCLC 959100115 (https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/959100115) .

11. Lynes, Barbara Buhler; Bowman, Russell (2001-01-01).O'Keeffe's O'Keeffes: the artist's collection. London:
Thames & Hudson.ISBN 0500092990. OCLC 813040992 (https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/813040992) .

12. Lynes, Barbara Buhler and Russell Bowman.O’Keeffe’s O’Keeffes: The Artist’s Collection. Milwaukee:
Thames & Hudson, 2001. 21.

13. Lynes, Barbara Buhler; O'Keeffe, Georgia (2007-01-01). Georgia O'Keeffe Museum collections: [celebrating
ten years : 1997-2007. New York: Abrams. ISBN 978-0810909571. OCLC 260120091 (https://www.worldca
t.org/oclc/260120091) .

14. This is clearly wrong; see Inside Red Canna from 1919

15. Lynes, Barbara Buhler; Bowman, Russell (2001-01-01).O'Keeffe's O'Keeffes: the artist's collection. London:
Thames & Hudson.ISBN 0500092990. OCLC 813040992 (https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/813040992) .
16. O'Keeffe, Georgia; Callaway, Nicholas (1998-01-01). Georgia O'Keeffe: one hundred flowers. New York: Fall
River Press. ISBN 9780760711125. OCLC 756776172 (https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/756776172) .

17. O'Keeffe, Georgia; Callaway, Nicholas (1998-01-01). Georgia O'Keeffe: one hundred flowers. New York: Fall
River Press. ISBN 9780760711125. OCLC 756776172 (https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/756776172) .

18. Lynes, Barbara Buhler; O'Keeffe, Georgia (1999-01-01). Georgia O'Keeffe: the catalogue raisonné. London;
New Haven; Washington; Abiquiu, New Mexico: Yale University Press; National Gallery of art; The Georgia
0'Keeffe Foundation. ISBN 0300081766. OCLC 959100115 (https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/959100115) .

19. "Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986), Black Iris"(http://www.christies.com/lotfinder/Lot/georgia-okeeffe-1887-19

86-black-iris-5508916-details.aspx) . www.christies.com. Retrieved 2017-05-04.

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