'' Jimson Weed'' is an oil on linen painting by American artist
Georgia O'Keeffe
Georgia Totto O'Keeffe (November 15, 1887 – March 6, 1986) was an American modernist artist. She was known for her paintings of enlarged flowers, New York skyscrapers, and New Mexico landscapes. O'Keeffe has been called the "Mother of Amer ...
from 1936, located in the
Indianapolis Museum of Art
The Indianapolis Museum of Art (IMA) is an encyclopedic art museum located at Newfields, a campus that also houses Lilly House, The Virginia B. Fairbanks Art & Nature Park: 100 Acres, the Gardens at Newfields, the Beer Garden, and more. It i ...
in
Indianapolis
Indianapolis (), colloquially known as Indy, is the state capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Indiana and the seat of Marion County. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the consolidated population of Indianapolis and Marion ...
,
Indiana
Indiana () is a U.S. state in the Midwestern United States. It is the 38th-largest by area and the 17th-most populous of the 50 States. Its capital and largest city is Indianapolis. Indiana was admitted to the United States as the 19th s ...
. It depicts four large blossoms of
jimson weed. A similar work by O'Keeffe, ''Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1'', was sold by the
Georgia O'Keeffe Museum
The Georgia O'Keeffe Museum is dedicated to the artistic legacy of Georgia O'Keeffe, her life, American modernism, and public engagement. It opened on July 17, 1997, eleven years after the artist's death. It comprises multiple sites in two locat ...
at auction to
Walmart
Walmart Inc. (; formerly Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.) is an American multinational retail corporation that operates a chain of hypermarkets (also called supercenters), discount department stores, and grocery stores from the United States, headquarter ...
heiress
Alice Walton
Alice Louise Walton (born October 7, 1949) is an American heiress to the fortune of Walmart. In September 2016, she owned over in Walmart shares. As of October 2022, Walton has a net worth of $59 billion, making her the 19th-richest person, and ...
in 2014 for $44,405,000, more than tripling the previous world auction record for a piece by a female artist.
Description
O'Keeffe reiterated the pinwheel-shaped flowers' structure in the tight placement of the four blossoms in the painting. Her use of rhythmic light and shade and a simplified palette underscores their fresh, simple beauty.
Historical information
O'Keeffe was immensely fond of
jimson weed, a species of ''
Datura
''Datura'' is a genus of nine species of highly poisonous, vespertine-flowering plants belonging to the nightshade family Solanaceae. They are commonly known as thornapples or jimsonweeds, but are also known as devil's trumpets (not to be conf ...
''. She ignored its seeds' toxicity, allowing it to flourish around her patio.
She paid tribute to the bloom in this painting, originally entitled ''Miracle Flower''. ''Jimson Weed'' was commissioned by cosmetics magnate
Elizabeth Arden
Elizabeth Arden (born Florence Nightingale Graham; December 31, 1881 – October 18, 1966) was a Canadian-American businesswoman who founded what is now Elizabeth Arden, Inc., and built a cosmetics empire in the United States. By 1929, s ...
for the new Gymnasium Moderne of her
Fifth Avenue
Fifth Avenue is a major and prominent thoroughfare in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It stretches north from Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village to West 143rd Street in Harlem. It is one of the most expensive shopping stre ...
Salon in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
. Placed in the exercise room, the unfurling blossoms were meant to encourage clients in their stretches. Arden paid $10,000 for the largest floral composition O'Keeffe would ever create.
Acquisition
The painting was acquired by the
Indianapolis Museum of Art
The Indianapolis Museum of Art (IMA) is an encyclopedic art museum located at Newfields, a campus that also houses Lilly House, The Virginia B. Fairbanks Art & Nature Park: 100 Acres, the Gardens at Newfields, the Beer Garden, and more. It i ...
in 1997, a gift of
Eli Lilly and Company
Eli Lilly and Company is an American pharmaceutical company headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana, with offices in 18 countries. Its products are sold in approximately 125 countries. The company was founded in 1876 by, and named after, Colonel ...
. It is displayed in the Paine American Modernism Gallery.
See also
*
Still life
A still life (plural: still lifes) is a work of art depicting mostly wikt:inanimate, inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which are either natural (food, flowers, dead animals, plants, rocks, shells, etc.) or artificiality, m ...
*
Modernism
Modernism is both a philosophy, philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western world, Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new fo ...
References
{{IMAart
1936 paintings
Modern paintings
Paintings in the collection of the Indianapolis Museum of Art
Paintings by Georgia O'Keeffe
Flower paintings