Jack-in-the-Pulpit No. 3

1930

Georgia O'Keeffe

Painter, American, 1887 - 1986

The curling, flaring petal of a jack-in-the-pulpit blossom wrapping around a vertical, elongated core nearly fills this vertical painting. The flower rises from a narrow base and is veined with white against dark, maroon red. It unfurls to reveal the deep maroon stamen within. Spring-green leaves span the lower edge of the composition, beneath the flower, and billow around the blossom, across the top of the painting. A soft blue and white background recalls clouds in a bright sky.

Media Options

This object’s media is not available for download. Contact us about image usage.

In her youth, Georgia O’Keeffe had been particularly fascinated by the jack-in-the-pulpit. In 1930, she executed a series of six paintings of the common North American herbaceous flowering plant at Lake George in New York. The National Gallery of Art is home to five of these six works: Jack-in-the-Pulpit – No. 2, this painting, Jack-in-the-Pulpit No. IV, Jack-in-the-Pulpit Abstraction – No. 5, and Jack-in-the-Pulpit No. VI. In this work, the flower is viewed from a slightly more distant vantage point than Jack-in-Pulpit - No. 2, so there is more emphasis on the elongated, upright form of the striped spathe. The green foliage is arranged in a less symmetrical manner, and the mauve background has been replaced by a cloudy sky.

The large, magnified representations of flowers that O’Keeffe embarked upon in the 1920s became her most famous subjects. Although such images had antecedents in the photographs of Paul Strand and Edward Steichen, and were to some extent paralleled in the paintings of Charles Demuth, O’Keeffe rendered them at an unprecedented scale and became more closely associated with flower imagery than her male peers.

Not on view See artworks now on view

Artwork overview

More About this Artwork

Scholarly Article:  American Paintings, 1900–1945: Jack-in-the-Pulpit No. 3, 1930

This nearly square painting shows an industrial area with buildings, storage silos, a smokestack, and railroad tracks. A mound of brown dirt or other material is in shadow in the lower left corner of the painting. Next to the mound, railroad tracks extend diagonally from the lower center of the painting into the distance to our right. The tracks end at a white building with staggered gray rooflines to our right in the distance. A tall terracotta-red smokestack rises high beyond the white building, smoke pouring out of its top and blending into the clouds above. Just beyond the mound of dirt, piles of white material, perhaps in unseen bins, line the railroad track to our left and lead back to a row ten interconnected, coral-orange silos. The horizon comes about halfway up the painting, and it is lined with a row of long white and gray warehouses. The artist signed and dated the work with brown paint in the lower right corner: “Sheeler 31.”

Scholarly Series:  American Paintings, 1900–1945

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

The artist [1887-1986]; her estate; bequest 1987 to NGA.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1931

  • Georgia O'Keeffe, An American Place, New York, January-February 1931, one of nos. 7-11.

  • Eleventh Exhibition of Contemporary American Oil Painting, Cleveland Museum of Art, June-July 1931, unnumbered catalogue, as Jack in the Pulpit, No. 2.

1932

  • Possibly Twenty-Seventh Annual Exhibition of Paintings by American Artists, City Art Museum, St. Louis, 1932, no. 37 (this may also be NGA 1987.58.1).

  • Possibly Exhibition of The American Society of Painters, Sculptors and Gravers, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, February 1932, no. 105, as Jack-in-the-Pulpit.

1933

  • Opening Exhibition, Springfield Museum of Fine Arts, Massachusetts, 1933, no. 222, repro., as Jack-in-the-Pulpit No. 2.

1943

  • Georgia O'Keeffe, The Art Institute of Chicago, 1943, no. 38.

1953

  • Possibly An Exhibition of Paintings by Georgia O'Keeffe, Dallas Museum of Fine Arts; The Mayo Hill Galleries, Delray Beach, Florida, 1953, no. 13, as Jack in the Pulpit.

1970

  • Georgia O'Keeffe Retrospective Exhibition, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; The Art Institute of Chicago; San Francisco Museum of Art, 1970-1971, no. 67, repro.

1984

  • Reflections of Nature: Flowers in American Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 1984, unnumbered catalogue, fig. 57.

1987

  • Georgia O'Keeffe: 1887-1986, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; The Art Institute of Chicago; Dallas Museum of Art; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1987-1989, no. 79, repro.

1999

  • Georgia O'Keeffe: The Poetry of Things, Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.; Georgia O'Keeffe Museum, Santa Fe; Dallas Museum of Art; Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco, 1999-2000, unnumbered catalogue, pl. 42 (shown only in Washington and Santa Fe).

2001

  • O'Keeffe's O'Keeffes: The Artist's Collection, Milwaukee Art Museum; Georgia O'Keeffe Museum, Santa Fe; Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebaek, Denmark, 2001-2002, no. 44, repro. (shown only in Milwaukee and Santa Fe).

2002

  • Georgia O'Keeffe: Naturalezas íntimas, Fundación Juan March, Madrid, 2002, no. 19, repro.

2007

  • Modernism and the Feminine Voice: O'Keeffe and the Women of the Stieglitz Circle, Georgia O'Keeffe Museum, Santa Fe; High Museum of Art, Atlanta; San Diego Museum of Art, 2007-2008, unnumbered catalogue.

2009

  • Georgia O'Keeffe: Abstraction, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.; Georgia O'Keeffe Museum, Santa Fe, 2009-2010, unnumbered catalogue, pl. 119.

2013

  • Modern Nature: Georgia O'Keeffe and Lake George, The Hyde Collection Art Museum, Glens Falls; Georgia O'Keeffe Museum, Santa Fe; Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, de Young Museum, 2013-2014, no. 52, repro.

2015

  • Collection Conversations: The Chrysler and the National Gallery, Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, 2015-2016, no catalogue.

2016

  • O'Keeffe, Stettheimer, Torr, Zorach: Women Modernists in New York, Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach; Portland (Maine) Museum of Art, 2016, no. 60, fig. 9.

2017

  • Georgia O'Keeffe: Living Modern, Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn; Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Winston-Salem; Peabody Essex Museum, Salem; The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland; Wichita Art Museum, Wichita; Nevada Museum of Art, Reno; Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, 2017 - 2020, not in catalogue.

Bibliography

1976

  • O’Keeffe, Georgia. Georgia O’Keeffe. New York, 1976: color pl. 38.

1992

  • American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1992: 250, repro.

1995

  • Benke, Britta. Georgia O’Keeffe 1887-1986: Flowers in the Desert. Cologne, 1995: 43, color repro.

1996

  • Wagner, Anne Middleton. Three Artists (Three Women): Modernism and the Art of Hesse, Krasner, and O’Keeffe. Berkeley, 1996: 70-72, color pl. 10.

1999

  • Lynes, Barbara Buhler. Georgia O'Keeffe: Catalogue Raisonné. 2 vols. New Haven and London, 1999: 1:434, no. 717, color repro.

2016

  • Roberts, Ellen E. O'Keeffe, Stettheimer, Torr, Zorach: Women Modernists in New York. Exh. cat. Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach; Portland (Maine) Museum of Art. West Palm Beach, 2016: 124 fig. 9, 127-128, 150 no. 60.

Inscriptions

across center reverse: signed within five-pointed star: OK

Wikidata ID

Q20192834

You may be interested in

Loading Results