BY THE MID-1920S, THE PAINTER Georgia O’Keeffe (1887-1986) was a figure of note in New York. Her large close-up paintings of flowers had caused a frisson and were seen both as metaphors for the female body and, in their nose-tothe-petal simplicity, examples of a new sort of Modernism — a form of non-abstract abstract art.
During her career, she made some 200 flower paintings and when commentators likened them to female genitalia she demurred: no, they were just flowers, she said. She went further to cut off invasive psycho-sexual speculation: “I
