Georgia O'Keeffe

O’Keeffe’s earliest flower paintings introduce what would become her lifelong interest in nature. In Pink Spirea she takes a common still-life motif, crowding a vase and its modest bouquet into a narrow vertical space. The arrangement is set aflame by fuchsia-colored leaves that burst upward and appear to lick the edges of the composition. Although small in scale, Pink Spirea is emphatic in color and movement, achieving O’Keeffe’s goal of creating the impact of close proximity. She told a reviewer that most people have no time to look carefully at nature: “I want them to see it whether they want to or not.”