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©
Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, VEGAP, Madrid
Georgia O'Keeffe

White Iris No. 7

1957
Oil on canvas.
102 x 76.2 cm
Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid
Inv. no.
697
(
1979.36
)
ROOM 46
Level 1
Permanent Collection
30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 Postpop rooms Rodin room
30 18th and 19th Centuries. Transatlantic Relations 31 19th Century. American Landscape and Environmental Awareness 32 19th Century. American Landscape and Urban Life 33 Recovering the ligth. Restoration of Waterloo Bridge, by André Derain 34 20th Century. Expressionist Landscapes 35 20th Century. Expressionist Portraits 36 20th Century. The Language of the Body 37 20th Century. Urban unrest 38 20th Century. Flowers 39 20th Century. Pioneers of abstraction 40 20th Century. Popular flavor 41 20th Century. The Cubist Tradition I 42 20th Century. The Cubist Tradition II 43 20th Century. Abstract Utopias 44 20th Century. Dada and Surrealism 45 20th Century. Interwar Realisms 46 20th Century. American Abstraction I 48 20th Century. Post-ward American Art 49 20th Century. Post-ward European Figurative Art 50 20th Century. Informalisms 51 20th Century. Homo Ludens 52 20th Century. Pop Art 53 Postpop rooms 54 Postpop rooms 55 Postpop rooms 56 Postpop rooms Rodin Exhibition room

White Iris No. 7 is a good example of the painter’s artistic interest in flower shapes. As in other similar works, O’Keeffe depicts them as if viewed from a close-up camera lens, owing perhaps to the influence of the avant-garde photographers belonging to Alfred Stieglitz’s circle. Also derived from the photographic framing technique is the manner of cutting off the subject-matter at the edges, a device that further adds to the abstraction of her compositions.

Close-up views of flowers were a frequent theme in Georgia O’Keeffe’s artistic output. These images have very often been explained from a gender perspective and nearly always interpreted as having a sexual significance. Although such disquisitions do not detract from the artistic importance of the images, the painter systematically rejected what she considered an erroneous interpretation, as evidenced by the text she published in the catalogue of the exhibition held in the New York gallery in 1939, in which she stated: “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.”

Although it is difficult to ignore the sexual connotations and not to relate the image to the female genitals, the present Iris, like many of O’Keeffe’s flower paintings, can be interpreted as a meditation on creation and the dealings between the spiritual and material worlds. This visual rendering of the organic world may also be linked to the French philosopher Henri Bergson’s notions of the élan vital, the spirit that animates living things, which greatly influenced Stieglitz’s circle.

Paloma Alarcó

20th Centurys. XX - Primeras vanguardias norteamericanasPaintingOilcanvas
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More details about White Iris No. 7

Georgia O'Keeffe in the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collections
Technical study
Georgia O'Keeffe in the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collections
To mark the first Georgia O’Keeffe retrospective in Spain, the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza decided to carry out research on the five paintings belonging to its collections, dated between 1921 and 1957, in order to examine the artist’s technique in depth.

Tours to find it

Vase with Chrysantemums. Crisantemos en un florero, s. f.
Tours
A walk among flowers

The present tour of the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection offers a survey of Western art from the end of the Middle Ages to the present with the aim of analysing the numerous functions of floral symbols .

Products and publications

White Iris Nº 7

White Iris Nº 7

17.00 €

Poster Georgia O'Keeffe: White Iris Nº7

Poster Georgia O'Keeffe: White Iris Nº7

12.50 €

Masterpieces. National Museum Thyssen-Bornemisza

Masterpieces. National Museum Thyssen-Bornemisza

19.50 €

Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection Catalogue  V1 (Spanish)

Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection Catalogue V1 (Spanish)

65.00 € 25.00 €

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Private and/or didactic use
White Iris No. 7. Lirio blanco nº 7, 1957
White Iris No. 7
Georgia O'Keeffe

©

Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, VEGAP, Madrid

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The exploitation rights of the images correspond to the Fundacion Coleccion Thyssen-Bornemisza, F.S.P. The Fundación authorizes the downloading of high-resolution images from its website for private use, use for educational and research purposes and non-commercial uses.

However, photographed works are protected by copyright. Therefore, regardless of the terms of use of the images set out below by the Foundation, it will be necessary to obtain a license from VEGAP (www.vegap.es), or from the corresponding collective management organization in the country where the work is going to be used or, where appropriate, from the holder of their rights in order to reproduce or exploit the work.

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White Iris No. 7. Lirio blanco nº 7, 1957
White Iris No. 7
Georgia O'Keeffe

©

Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, VEGAP, Madrid

Terms of Use

The Photo Library of the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza offers sale and rental service of photographic material of all the works on its Permanent Collection.

To request images or permits for commercial use in academic or research publications, that is, catalogues of other institutions, monographs and other specialized publications, you should contact the Museum's Photo Library by email at the e-mail @email.

To request images or permits for other commercial or advertising uses (general publications, merchandising, exhibitions, audio-visual works, web pages, etc.), you should contact the Museum's Commercial Archive by email at the e-mail @email.

The Photo Library and the Museum's Commercial Archive manage the worldwide distribution of images of the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza works, as well as their reproduction rights. The applicable rates are calculated based on the nature and proposed use of the images, as well as the availability of the requested image.

Requests for scans or new photographs will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. Once approved, an additional fee will apply. Re-photographing a work will require a minimum of six weeks to complete.

However, photographed works are protected by copyright. Therefore, regardless of the terms of use of the photographs set out below by the Foundation, it will be necessary to obtain a license from  VEGAP (Visual Entidad de Gestión de Artistas Plásticos www.vegap.es) or from the corresponding collective management organizations in the country where the work is going to be used or, where appropriate, from the holder of their rights in order to reproduce or exploit the work.

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