Dark & Lavender Leaves

Georgia O’Keeffe produced a range of abstract works depicting natural forms enlarged to an imposing scale. In Dark & Lavender Leaves, she painted a smaller leaf in lighter lavender and nestled it in the larger leaves. She cropped the larger leaf closely, inspired by modernist photography and especially the work of Paul Strand. The bottom leaf pushes against the frame and fills the visual space of the canvas, asserting a presence and intimacy not usually afforded to such subjects. O’Keeffe remarked, “Paint it big and they will be surprised into taking more time to look at it.” O'Keeffe first exhibited the painting in 1933 as Autumn Leaf at An American Place, the gallery run by Alfred Stieglitz, who was both an influential modernist photographer and her husband.