The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of December 18, 2025

Oil painting with strokes visible in subtle streaks of a sunflower against a bright, sky blue background. A green stalk rises from the center of the canvas, single leaves curving out on either side of the stalk. Gold-yellow petals sway around the central disc of the flower with a green center surrounded by a ring of yellow and orange specs of paint that radiate into smoother yellow-green strokes.

Sunflower, New Mexico, I

1935

Georgia O'Keeffe

(American, 1887–1986)
America
oil on canvas
Framed: 53.3 x 43.2 x 3.8 cm (21 x 17 x 1 1/2 in.); Unframed: 50.8 x 40.6 cm (20 x 16 in.)
Bequest of Georgia O'Keeffe 1987.140
© Georgia O'Keeffe Museum / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Location: On view at San Antonio Museum of Art, San Antonio, TX, Oct 4, 2025 - Oct 4, 2026

Did You Know?

The sunflower was a rare subject for O'Keeffe, who painted them on only three occasions.

Description

Unlike most of O’Keeffe’s close-up images of flowers, this example appears in a landscape environment, with bloom, stem, and leaves framed against the bright blue Southwestern sky.
  • Estate of the artist, 1986
  • Georgia O'Keeffe. New York: Viking Press, 1976. Reproduced: p. 71, no. 27
  • Art Bridges Loan Partnership. Mattatuck Museum, Waterbury, CT (August 16, 2024-September 21, 2025); San Antonio Museum of Art, San Antonio, TX (October 4, 2025-October 4, 2026) https://www.samuseum.org/artwork/exhibition/canvas-to-clay-georgia-okeeffe-maria-martinez-to-mata-ortiz-and-tonala/.
    Georgia O'Keeffe: Living Modern. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (November 21, 2018-March 3, 2019).
    Georgia O'Keeffe and the Southwestern Still Life. Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis, IN (October 30, 2014-February 15, 2015).
    International Arts (organizer). Indianapolis Museum of Art, IN (10/30/2014 - 2/15/2015): "Georgia O'Keeffe and the Southwestern Still Life:"
    The Georgia O'Keeffe Gift. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (September 4-November 15, 1987).
    Cleveland, The Cleveland Museum of Art, The Georgia O'Keeffe Gift (4 September-15 November 1987)
    New York, An American Place Georgia O'Keeffe: Exhibition of Recent Paintings, 1935 (1936), No. 11.
  • {{cite web|title=Sunflower, New Mexico, I|url=false|author=Georgia O'Keeffe|year=1935|access-date=18 December 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1987.140