Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1, 1932 by Georgia O'Keeffe

Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1, 1932 by Georgia O'Keeffe
Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1, 1932 by Georgia O'Keeffe

Throughout her career, Georgia O'Keeffe strove to depict what she described as "the wideness and wonder of the world as I live in it." Her spirit of adventure and passion for the natural world drove her to explore the landscape of the United States, and to do so in such diverse places as Lake George, New York and Abiquiu, New Mexico. As such, the core of O'Keeffe's work lies in the natural imagery around her, but her ability to capture the elusive boundary between representation and abstraction is central to her singular language of modernism.

Jimson Weed, White Flower No. 1, depicts one of O'Keeffe's favorite subjects: a magnified flower. To her, the delicate blooms stood as some of the most overlooked pieces of naturally occurring beauty, objects that the bustling contemporary world ignored. So she made it her mission to highlight their complex structures, explaining: "When you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it's your world for the moment. I want to give that world to someone else. Most people in the city rush around so, they have no time to look at a flower. I want them to see it whether they want to or not."

In November, 2014, Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1 was sold for $44.4 million at a Sotheby's auction, makes Georgia O'Keeffe the highest-selling woman in art.