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Oil on canvas, 36 x 30 inches
CR No. 713
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George A. Hearn Fund, 1934
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A large black hollyhock with velvety petals and a white center fills the frame. Below the hollyhock, three blue larkspur flowers (also known as delphinium) line the bottom edge of the composition. Bits of gray background appear surrounding the flowers.
CR No. 713
Title (1999 Catalogue Raisonné)
Black Flower and Blue Larkspur
Source of title: Whitney Archive, Downtown Gallery Archive, Abiquiú Notebooks.
Alternate Title (1999 Catalogue Raisonné)
Black Hollyhock with Blue Larkspur
Alternate Title
Black Hollyhock, Blue Larkspur
Source of title: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
General Remarks
Whitney Archive indicates, 'Painted at Taos 1929. . . . Sold to Metropolitan Museum. Ptd. 1930.'Whitney Archive, Abiquiú Notebooks date 1930. Downtown Gallery Archive dates 1929. Dated 1930 and completed in Taos on basis of Stieglitz–O'Keeffe correspondence. See cat. no. 714. Purchased by Metropolitan Museum of Art out of First Municipal Show in New York. Pictured in 1931 New York (An American Place) Stieglitz installation photograph, see Appendix III, figure 45. Reproduced and titled Black Flower and Blue Iris in New York Herald Tribune (March 1934) and Arts and Decoration (May 1934); Black Flower & Blue Larkspur in Limners and Likenesses (1936). O'Keeffe wrote: ". . . when I was at Mabel's in Taos . . . there was an alfalfa field like a large green saucer. On one side of the field was a path lined with flowers. . . . one day walking down the path I picked a large blackish red hollyhock and some bright dark blue larkspur that immediately went into a painting –– and then another painting" (Georgia O'Keeffe [1976], unpaginated, text accompanying entry 56). (Source: Lynes, 1999)
Lynes publication dates work 1930. The Met dates it 1929 (Source: The Met, 2025).
Technique
Oil Painting
Materials
Oil on canvas
1939
1940
1941
1942–1943
1944
1945
1946
1954–1955
1961
1978
"Metropolitan Buys 3 Works In City Art Show." New York Herald Tribune (March 26, 1934), p. 17, ill., as "Black Flower and Blue Iris".
"Obstreperous Art." Arts and Decoration XLI (May 1934), p. 36, ill., as "Black Flower and Blue Iris".
E[manuel]. M. Benson. "A New Yorker Looks His Museums in the Face." American Magazine of Art 27 (October 1934), p. 538.
William M. Ivins, Jr. et al. "Notes." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 29 (April 1934), p. 67.
Alan Burroughs. Limners and Likenesses: Three Centuries of American Painting. Cambridge, Mass., 1936, pp. 183, 212, fig. 162, as "Black Flower and Blue Larkspur".
"On the Local Horizons." New York Times (June 21, 1936), p. X7.
"FSCW to Sponsor Exhibit of Art at Jacksonville." Tallahassee Democrat (February 27, 1941), p. 10, calls it "Black Flower and Blue Larkspur".
"Picture of the Month." Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute Bulletin (April 1944), unpaginated, ill.
Holger Cahill. "In Our Time." Magazine of Art 39 (November 1946), p. 313, ill., calls it "Black Flower and Blue Larkspur".
Charles L. Fontenay. "Dr. Dutch's Talk, Preview Mark Exhibit Opening." Nashville Tennessean (October 8, 1949), p. 5, calls it "Black Flower and Blue Larkspur".
"To Be Shown in Columbia." Times and Democrat (November 1, 1949), p. 6, calls it "Black Flower and Blue Larkspur".
Of Art and Nature. Exh. cat., East Hampton, N.Y. Guild Hall. East Hampton, N.Y., 1961, unpaginated, no. 21, ill. front and back covers.
Henry Geldzahler. American Painting in the Twentieth Century. New York, 1965, pp. 131–32, ill., as "Black Flower and Blue Larkspur".
Doris Reno. "Miami's Old 17th Century Friend Found Shining in a New Setting." Miami Herald (August 22, 1965), p. 21E, calls it "Black Flower and Blue Larkspur".
Nora B. Beeson. Guide to The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1972, p. 279.
Henry Geldzahler. Arte del Siglo Veinte: EE.UU. del Museo Metropolitano de Arte/ Twentieth-Century Art: U.S.A. from The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Exh. cat., El Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña. San Juan, 1974, pp. 35–36, no. 12, ill.
Georgia O'Keeffe. Georgia O'Keeffe. New York, 1976, text facing pl. 56, artist recalls creating this picture and a similar canvas (1930, private collection, Buhler Lynes 1999 no. 714) during the summer of 1929 in Taos, New Mexico.
Helen A. Harrison in Twentieth Century American Paintings from The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Exh. cat., Parrish Art Museum. Southampton, N. Y., 1977, p. 16, no. 7, ill.
Helen A. Harrison in La Peinture Américaine au 20e Siècle de la Collection du Metropolitan Museum of Art. Exh. cat., Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels. Brussels, 1978, unpaginated, no. 7, ill. and ill. front cover (color), reprints Ref. Harrison 1977.
Henry Geldzahler. Twelve Americans from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Exh. cat., New York State Senate, Albany. New York, 1980, pp. 20–21, ill.
William S. Lieberman in Twelve Americans from The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Exh. cat., New York State Senate, Albany. New York, 1980, p. 3.
Lisa Mintz Messinger. "Georgia O'Keeffe." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 42 (Fall 1984), p. 34, fig. 35 (color).
Philippe de Montebello. "[Director's Note]." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 42 (Fall 1984), p. 2.
Elyse Topalian. "Modern Art in the Met." Apollo 124 (October 1986), p. 362, calls it "Black Hollyhock and Blue Larkspur".
Laurie Lisle. Portrait of an Artist: A Biography of Georgia O'Keeffe. Albuquerque, 1986, p. 215, calls it "Black Flower and Blue Larkspur".
Charles C. Eldredge in Art in New Mexico, 1900–1945: Path to Taos and Santa Fe. Exh. cat., National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D. C. New York, 1986, p. 165, fig. 190.
Erika Billeter. "Georgia O'Keeffe's Bilder." Du (May 1987), pp. 37–38, ill. (color).
Lisa Mintz Messinger. Georgia O'Keeffe. New York, 1988, pp. 58, 62, fig. 42 (color).
Michael Berry. Georgia O'Keeffe. New York, 1988, p. 76, as "Black Flower and Blue Larkspur".
"Picture the Past: Georgia O'Keeffe, Alfred Stieglitz and the Met." Column 2 (September/October 1988), unpaginated, as "Black Hollyhock and Blue Larkspur".
Roxana Robinson. Georgia O'Keeffe: A Life. New York, 1989, p. 403, calls it "Black Flower and Blue Iris".
Elizabeth Montgomery. Georgia O'Keeffe. New York, 1993, ill. p. 51 (color).
Lucy Belloli. "The Effects of Time: Georgia O'Keeffe's 'Black Hollyhock, Blue Larkspur'." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 51 (Winter 1993–94), pp. 38–43, figs. 1–4, 6–7 (color and bw, overall and details, diagram of hermetically-sealed box containing the painting).
Lisa Mintz Messinger in The Georgia O'Keeffe Museum. Ed. Peter H. Hassrick. New York, 1997, p. 38, calls it "Black Hollyhock with Blue Larkspur"; compares it to the private collection version of the same motif (Buhler Lynes 1999, no. 714); discusses the iconography of the private collection version (on p. 75) in the context of nineteenth-century American flower paintings.
Barbara Buhler Lynes. Georgia O'Keeffe: Catalogue Raisonné. New Haven, Conn., 1999, vol. 1, p. 430, no. 713, ill. (color); vol. 2, p. 1121, fig. 41 (checklist), p. 1122, fig. 45 (installation view, Exh. New York 1931), calls it "Black Flower and Blue Larkspur (Black Hollyhock and Blue Larkspur)" and dates it 1930.
Elsa Mezvinsky Smithgall in Elizabeth Hutton Turner. Georgia O'Keeffe: The Poetry of Things. Exh. cat., Phillips Collection. Washington, D. C., 1999, p. 112.
Lisa Mintz Messinger. Georgia O'Keeffe. London, 2001, p. 117, fig. 77 (color), calls it "Black Hollyhock with Blue Larkspur".
Barbara Buhler Lynes in Georgia O'Keeffe in Williamsburg: A Re-Creation of the Artist's First Public Exhibition in the South. Ed. Bonnie G. Kelm and Ann C. Madonia. Exh. cat., Muscarelle Museum of Art, The College of William and Mary. Williamsburg, VA, 2001, pp. 42, 45 n. 8, fig. 15 (color), calls it "Black Flower and Blue Larkspur" and dates it 1930.
Hunter Drohojowska-Philp. Full Bloom: The Art and Life of Georgia O'Keeffe. New York, 2004, pp. 324, 353, calls it "Black Hollyhock Blue Larkspur" [no comma] on p. 324.
Susan Wright. Georgia O'Keeffe: An Eternal Spirit. (1st ed., 1996). [New York], 2006, p. 80, ill. (color).
Barbara Buhler Lynes. Georgia O'Keeffe Museum Collections. New York, 2007, p. 152.
Sarah Greenough, ed. My Faraway One: Selected Letters of Georgia O'Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz. Vol. 1, 1915–1933. New Haven, Conn., 2011, p. 546.
[An American Place, New York, until 1934; sold to MMA] (Source: The Met, 2025)
© Georgia O'Keeffe Museum
Version History
Core fields last updated 10/15/2026
Last verified by current collection
Source System ID
8758
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