Red Poppy VI 

Georgia O'Keeffe made this painting, Red Poppy VI, with oil on canvas sometime in the first half of the twentieth century. It's one of many paintings she made of flowers. It’s tempting to see O’Keeffe’s flower paintings as simply beautiful, harmless things. But during O'Keeffe's time, the American art world was largely dominated by men, and O'Keeffe's paintings offered a distinctly female perspective, challenging the traditional male gaze. The flowers' magnified scale and sensuous forms subverted conventional notions of beauty and femininity. Some critics even interpreted the paintings as overtly sexual, which O'Keeffe both embraced and refuted. To understand O’Keeffe, we have to go beyond the canvas. Archival research, feminist theory, and a deep dive into the art world of her time can help us understand how O’Keeffe used the visual language of painting to challenge cultural norms.