Jack-in-the-Pulpit No. IV
1930
Painter, American, 1887 - 1986

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, Jack-in-the-Pulpit No. 3, this work, Jack-in-the-Pulpit Abstraction – No. 5, and Jack-in-the-Pulpit No. VI. Jack in the Pulpit No. IV presents a magnified view of the spadix set against the spathe’s cavernous, dark purple interior. The composition is bifurcated by a narrow strip of white that emerges from the tip of the spadix. Green foliage and a hint of cloudy sky are confined to the upper right and left corners.
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.

West Building Ground Floor, Gallery G6
Artwork overview
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Medium
oil on canvas
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Credit Line
-
Dimensions
overall: 101.6 x 76.2 cm (40 x 30 in.)
framed: 104.8 x 79.7 x 4.3 cm (41 1/4 x 31 3/8 x 1 11/16 in.) -
Accession
1987.58.3
More About this Artwork

Video: Georgia O'Keeffe "Jack-in-the-Pulpit No. IV" (ASL)
This video provides an ASL description of Georgia O'Keeffe's painting, Jack-in-the-Pulpit No. IV.
Artwork history & notes
Provenance
The artist; by exchange 1955 through (Downtown Gallery, New York) to Drs. Melvin [1920-1969] and Helen W. [1921-2009] Boigon, New York, until at least 1971;[1] sold 1972 through (Hirschl & Adler Galleries, Inc., New York) to private collection, Miami; (Kennedy Galleries, Inc., New York), in 1973; returned 1973 through Doris Bry, New York, to the artist [1887-1986];[2] her estate; bequest 1987 to NGA.
[1] The artist wrote to Edith Halpert, owner of the Downtown Gallery, on 3 January 1955: "The Boigons write me that they have exchanged the Antelope [Pedernal] for the "Jack In The Pulpit" -- and I don't know which one." Halpert responded on 8 January 1955: "Yes, the Boigons decided to exchange 'Antelope and Pedernal' for the large 'Jack-in-the-Pulpit #6' date 1930." (The letters are in the Downtown Gallery Records, 1824-1974, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington: Artist Files, A-Z: O'Keeffe, Georgia 1951-1955, Box 25, Reel 5550, Frames 1173-1175 and 1177-1178; copies in NGA curatorial files.) The artist and Doris Bry renumbered the Jack-in-the-Pulpit series in 1970; this painting, now the fourth, was originally the sixth.
[2] The provenance is from Barbara Buhler Lynes, Georgia O'Keeffe: Catalogue Raisonné, 2 vols., New Haven and London, 1999: 1:435, no. 718.
Associated Names
Exhibition History
1931
Georgia O'Keeffe, An American Place, New York, 1931, one of nos. 7-11.
1932
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.
1943
Georgia O'Keeffe, The Art Institute of Chicago, 1943, no. 39.
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. 68, repro.
1984
Reflections of Nature: Flowers in American Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 1984, unnumbered catalogue, fig. 58.
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. 80, 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, fig. 21.
2001
Modern Art and America: Alfred Stieglitz and His New York Galleries, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 2001, no. 177, repro.
2002
Georgia O'Keeffe: Naturalezas íntimas, Fundación Juan March, Madrid, 2002, no. 20, repro.
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. 120.
2011
Georgia O'Keeffe, Fondazione Roma Museo, Palazzo Cipolla, Rome; Kunsthalle der Hypo-Kulturstiftung, Munich; Helsinki Art Museum Tennis Palace, 2011-2012, no. 41, repro. (Italian catalogue), no. 113, repro. (German and Finnish catalogues).
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. 53, repro.
2014
Loan to display with permanent collection, The Phillips Collection, Washington, 2014-2015, no catalogue.
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. 61, fig. 10.
2021
Georgia O'Keeffe, Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid; Musée national d'art moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Fondation Beyeler, Riehen/Basel, 2021 - 2022, unnumbered catalogue, repro.
Bibliography
1992
American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1992: 251, repro.
National Gallery of Art, Washington. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1992: 261, repro.
1995
Benke, Britta. Georgia O’Keeffe 1887-1986: Flowers in the Desert. Cologne, 1995: 44, 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. 11.
1999
Lynes, Barbara Buhler. Georgia O'Keeffe: Catalogue Raisonné. 2 vols. New Haven and London, 1999: 1:435, no. 718, color repro.
2000
Modern Art and America: Alfred Stieglitz and His New York Galleries. Exh. cat. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 2001: no. 177.
2004
Eldredge, Charles C. “Skunk Cabbages, Seasons and Cycles.” In Joseph S. Czestochowski, ed., Georgia O’Keeffe: Vision of the Sublime. Memphis, 2004: 71-72, pl. 42.
2008
Miller, Angela et al. American Encounters: Art, History, and Cultural Identity. Upper Saddle River, NJ, 2008: 409-410, color fig. 12.19.
2009
Balken, Debra Bricker. Dove/O'Keeffe: Circles of Influence. Exh. cat. Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, 2009: 62-63, fig. 51.
2016
National Gallery of Art. Highlights from the National Gallery of Art, Washington. Washington, 2016: 296, repro.
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: 125 fig. 10, 127-128, 150 no. 61.
Inscriptions
across top of old back board, now taped to bottom half of back: No 6 Jack in Pulpit - 30 / signed within five-pointed star: OK
Wikidata ID
Q20192838