The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of July 16, 2025

An oil painting of a close-up of the center of a white flower. In the lower right hand side of the painting, soft slopes of black petals fill the corner.

Morning Glory with Black

1926
(American, 1887–1986)
America
oil on canvas
Framed: 96.5 x 81.3 x 5.4 cm (38 x 32 x 2 1/8 in.); Unframed: 91 x 75.5 cm (35 13/16 x 29 3/4 in.)
Bequest of Leonard C. Hanna Jr. 1958.42
Location: 226A American Modern

Did You Know?

The morning glory rests against a black petunia, seen partially at lower right.

Description

O'Keeffe is best known for close-up flower subjects whose magnified forms fill the entire space of each canvas. Likely inspired by similar compositions in modern photography, these images are not only celebrations of nature, but also striking essays in abstract design. Although many critics interpreted O'Keeffe's flower paintings as reflections of femininity in general and female sexuality in particular, the artist strongly opposed such readings. Throughout most of her career, she frequently attempted to persuade others to discuss her work without referring to her gender, writing on one occasion, "I have always been very annoyed at being referred to as a 'woman artist' rather than an 'artist.'"
  • Messinger, Lisa Mintz. Georgia O'Keeffe. New York: Thames & Hudson, 2001. Mentioned: p. 74; Reproduced: p. 73
    O'Keeffe, Georgia, Alfred Stieglitz, and Sarah Greenough. My Faraway One: Selected Letters of Georgia O'Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz. New Haven [Conn.]: Yale University Press, 2011. Mentioned p. 539, n. 219.
    Metropolitan Museum of Art. Contemporary Painting in the United States: A Special Exhibition April 19 Through April 27. New York: The Museum Press, 1941. Mentioned: p. 16
    Milliken, William Mathewson. In Memoriam Leonard C. Hanna, Jr. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1958. Mentioned; Reproduced: fig. 26
    Friedman, Martin. The Precisionist View in American Art: November 13 Through December 25, 1960: An Exhibition. Minneapolis, MN: Walker Art Center, 1960. Mentioned: p. 57
    Wilder, Mitchell. Georgia O'Keeffe: An Exhibition of the Work of the Artist from 1915 to 1966. Fort Worth: Amon Carter Museum of Western Art,1966. Mentioned: p. 28
    Goodrich, Lloyd, and Doris Bry. Georgia O'Keeffe. New York, NY: Published for the Whitney Museum of American Art by Praeger, 1970. Mentioned: p. 18-19
    Hoffman, Katherine. An Enduring Spirit: The Art of Georgia O'Keeffe. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1984. Mentioned: p. 103; Reproduced: fig. Q
    Castro, Jan Garden. The Art & Life of Georgia O'Keeffe. New York: Crown Publishers, Inc., 1985. Reproduced: p. 28
    "Art Museum Gets O'Keeffe Paintings." The Cleveland Plain Dealer, April 22, 1986. Mentioned: p. 5C
    Callaway, Nicholas. Georgia O'Keeffe: One Hundred Flowers. New York: Knopf in association with Callaway Editions, 1987. Reproduced: p. 40, 110
    Culllinan, Helen. "Georgia On Our Minds; O'Keeffe Legacy: 5 Glowing New Oils at Museum." The Cleveland Plain Dealer, September 5, 1987. Mentioned
    Callaway, Nicholas. "Ostentatious Perfectionism." Interview by Ingrid Sischy. Artforum International 26, no. 5 (January 1988). Reproduced: p. 100
    Bry, Doris, Nicholas Callaway, and Bram Dijkstra. Georgia O'Keeffe: The New York Years. New York: A.A. Knopf in association with Callaway, 1991. Reproduced: p. 54
    Montgomery, Elizabeth Miles. Georgia O'Keeffe. New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1993. Reproduced: p. 42
    Chong, Alan. European & American Painting in the Cleveland Museum of Art: A Summary Catalogue. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1993. Reproduced: p. 170
    Welton, Jude. Looking at Paintings. London: Dorling Kindersley, 1994. Mentioned: p. 9; Reproduced: p. 9
    Pelfrey, Robert H. Art and Mass Media. Dubuque, Iowa: Kendall/Hunt, 1996. Mentioned: p. 311; Reproduced: p. 312
    Tsutsumi, Tomoko, and Yōko Yano. Seiyō kaiga no naka no hana. Tokyo: Asahi Shinbunsha, 1997. Reproduced: fig. 73
    Hutton Turner, Elizabeth, and Marjorie P. Balge-Crozier. Georgia O'Keeffe: The Poetry of Things. Washington, DC: Phillips Collection, 1999. Mentioned: p. 150; Reproduced: p. 85, pl. 31
    Lynes, Barbara Buhler. Georgia O'Keeffe: Catalogue Raisonné, 2 vols. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999. Mentioned; Reproduced: p. 320
    Greenough, Sarah. Modern Art and America: Alfred Stieglitz and His New York Galleries. Washington, D.C.; Boston, MA: National Gallery of Art; Bulfinch Press, 2000. Mentioned: p. 535; Reproduced: p. 311, pl. 106
    de Chassey, Eric. Made in USA: l'art américain, 1908-1947. Paris: Réunion des musées nationaux, 2001. Reproduced: p. 133
    "L’art Américain débarqu." Le Magazine: Arts & Spectacles, no. 328 (January 2002). Reproduced
    Souter, Janet. Georgia O'Keeffe. New York: Parkstone Press, 2005. Reproduced: p. 95
    Sims, Lowery Stokes. The Persistence of Geometry: Form, Content, and Culture in the Collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2006. Reproduced: p. 119, no. 68; p. 70
    Haskell, Barbara and Sasha Nicholas. Georgia O'Keeffe: Abstraction. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2009. Reproduced: p. 111
    Cleveland Museum of Art. The CMA Companion: A Guide to the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2014. Mentioned and reproduced: P. 57
    Bernard, Sophie. Georgia O'Keeffe et ses amis photographes. Paris: Somogy; Grenoble: Musée de Grenoble, 2015. Mentioned: p. 52; Reproduced: p. 53, fig. 34
    Corn, Wanda M., Georgia O'Keeffe: Living Modern. Brooklyn, NY: Brooklyn Museum; DelMonico Books/Prestel, 2017. Mentioned: p. 75, Reproduced: fig. 64, p. 76
    "New in the Galleries.” Cleveland Art: Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine vol. 57, no. 5 (September/October 2017): Back cover. Reproduced and Mentioned: Back cover.
    "December 2018 calendar.” Cleveland Art: Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine vol. 58. no. 6 (November/December 2018): insert between P. 18 and P. 19. Reproduced: Insert between P. 18 and P. 19.
  • Georgia O'Keeffe: Living Modern. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (November 21, 2018-March 3, 2019); Wichita Art Museum, Wichita, KS (March 29-June 23, 2019); Nevada Museum of Art, Reno, NV (July 18-October 20, 2019); Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, FL (November 21, 2019-February 9, 2020).
    Georgia O'Keeffe: Living Modern. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (November 21, 2018-March 3, 2019).
    Georgia O'Keeffe: Abstraction. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY (organizer) (September 17, 2009-January 17, 2010).
    Georgia O'Keeffe and the Women of the Stieglitz Circle. High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA (organizer) (February 9-May 4, 2008).
    The Persistence of Geometry: Form, Content and Culture in the Collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland (MOCA), Cleveland, OH (June 9-August 20, 2006).
    Made in U.S.A., l'art américain, 1908-1943, entre nationalisme et internationalisme [FRAME]. Musée des Beaux-Arts de Bordeaux, F-33000 Bordeaux, France (organizer) (October 5-December 31, 2001); Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rennes, Rennes, France (January 17-March 31, 2002); Musée Fabre, Montpellier, France (April 10-June 25, 2002).
    Modern Art in America: Alfred Stieglitz and His New York Galleries. National Gallery of Art, Landover, MD (organizer) (January 28-April 22, 2001).
    Georgia O'Keeffe: The Poetry of Things. The Phillips Collection (organizer) (April 24-July 18, 1999); Georgia O'Keeffe Museum (August 14-October 10, 1999); The Dallas Museum of Art (October 30, 1999-January 30, 2000); Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco, Legion of Honor (February 19-May 14, 2000).
    The Precisionist Aesthetic in American Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (January 24-April 9, 1989).
    The Georgia O'Keeffe Gift. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (September 4-November 15, 1987).
    Georgia O'Keeffe Retrospective Exhibition. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY (organizer) (October 8-November 29, 1970); The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL (January 6-February 7, 1971); Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco, Legion of Honor, San Francisco, CA (March 15-April 30, 1971).
    Works from the Contemporary Collection. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (July 1-October 15, 1969).
    First Indian Triennale of World Art. Indian National Academy of Art, New Delhi, India (organizer) (February 10-March 30, 1968).
    Georgia O'Keeffe: An Exhibition of the work of the artist from 1915-1966. Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, TX (organizer) (March 17-May 8, 1966).
    Four Centuries of American Art. Minneapolis Institute of Arts, MN (organizer) (co-organizer) (November 27, 1963-January 19, 1964).
    The Precisionist View in American Art. Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN (organizer) (November 13-December 25, 1960); Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY (January 24-February 28, 1961); The Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, MI (March 21-April 23, 1961); Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA (May 17-June 18, 1961); Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco, Legion of Honor, San Francisco, CA (July 2-August 6, 1961).
    January Show. Kingwood Center Gardens, Mansfield, OH (organizer) (January 11-31, 1959).
    Georgia O’Keeffe. Museum of Modern Art, New York (May 14-August 25, 1946).
    Speed Memorial Museum. Louisville, KY (February 13-March 5, 1944).
    Contemporary Painting in the United States: A Special Exhibition. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, NY (April 19-April 27, 1941).
    Georgia O'Keeffe Paintings. The Intimate Gallery, New York (January 11-February 27, 1927).
  • {{cite web|title=Morning Glory with Black|url=false|author=Georgia O'Keeffe|year=1926|access-date=16 July 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1958.42