Jack-in-the-Pulpit No. VI

A sweeping, curved shape fills the composition, traced in a pale outline that sets it apart from the shadowed darkness within. Around this inner form spreads a reddish-brown field, giving the whole image a feeling of close observation pulled far from its original scale, so that the subject reads almost as pure abstraction rather than a recognizable flower part. The painting, titled Jack-in-the-Pulpit No. VI, was made in 1930 in oil and is held at the National Gallery of Art, having entered the collection through the Alfred Stieglitz Collection as a bequest from the artist herself. Georgia O'Keeffe, born in 1887 and died in 1986, was an American painter who worked in this intensely magnified, close-up style of depicting natural forms. One detail worth lingering on is the stark contrast between the smooth white edge of the curved shape and the deep, almost impenetrable darkness it encloses.