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Georgia O'Keeffe Museum: Access O'Keeffe
Georgia O'Keeffe
Banana Flower, 1934
Image: okeeffe_CR830_banana-flower_713994.jpg
Georgia O'Keeffe
Banana Flower, 1934
Charcoal on moderately thick, cream, slightly textured wove paper*, 21 3/4 x 14 3/4 inches
CR No. 830
Charcoal on moderately thick, cream, slightly textured wove paper*, 21 3/4 x 14 3/4 inches
CR No. 830

A banana flower hangs upside down at the center of the composition. Its younger leaves are closed and coiled around the plant's blossoms, while the older leaves have withered and curled in on themselves.

CR No. 830

Title (1999 Catalogue Raisonné)

Banana Flower

Source of title: Whitney Archive.

General Remarks

Not recorded Downtown Gallery Archive, Abiquiú Notebooks. This and cat. no. 823, 824, 829 were exchanged in 1936 by O'Keeffe for cat. no. 725. Dated 1934 on basis of Stieglitz–O'Keeffe correspondence. O'Keeffe wrote: "I spent a couple of months or more [in 1934] . . . in Bermuda [first visit 1933, second visit 1934]. Off to one side of the house was a large grove of banana trees in flower. The flowers were dark purplish red, large and heavy –– and hung down. Each petal had a row of little white flowers under it. As the petal turns back and dies the little white flowers become bananas. I made several drawings of banana flowers. It was too hot to work long outside and I never took a flower into the house. I didn't like to cut it" (Some Memories of Drawings [1988], unpaginated). (Source: Lynes, 1999)

Technique

Drawing

Materials

Charcoal on moderately thick, cream, slightly textured wove paper*

Credits & Rights

© Georgia O'Keeffe Museum

Administrative Information

Version History

Core fields last updated 8/26/2026

Source System ID

8829

Other IDs

830, Catalogue Raisonné