Shell No. I

1928

Georgia O'Keeffe

Painter, American, 1887 - 1986

The spiraling whorls of a nearly round, pearl-white shell fills this square painting. The inner edges of the shell’s whorls are shaded with pale spring green, especially to our right, and the innermost spiral is pale pink. The outer lip, that is, the open end of the shell, faces down to our right. The shell sits against a stone-gray background and casts a shadow to our left.
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Shell No. 1 is one in a group of three different shell subjects Georgia O’Keeffe painted in 1928 and exhibited at the Intimate Gallery in New York in 1929. It represents a nautilus shell set against a dark charcoal background. O’Keeffe avidly collected seashells on her travels. Later in life she recalled, “Each shell was a beautiful world in itself,” and “I have always enjoyed painting them—and even now, living in the desert, the sea comes back to me when I hold one to my ear.” The harmonious spiral shape of the nautilus can evoke the perfection of nature or infinity. O’Keeffe chose to represent the shell in a life-size painting measuring only seven by seven inches. The edges of her subject are barely contained by the borders of her canvas, resulting in a startlingly direct and striking representation despite the small size.

On View

East Building Upper Level, Gallery 415-B

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Artwork overview

More About this Artwork

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

Scholarly Article:  American Paintings, 1900–1945: Shell No. I, 1928

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

The artist; sold 1953 through (Downtown Gallery, New York) to private collection, New York; the artist [1887-1996], by unknown date;[1] her estate; bequest 1987 to NGA.
[1] Provenance from Barbara Buhler Lynes, Georgia O'Keeffe: Catalogue Raisonné, 2 vols., New Haven and London, 1999: 1:366.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1929

  • Georgia O'Keeffe: Paintings, 1928, The Intimate Gallery, New York, 1929, unnumbered.

Bibliography

1976

  • O’Keeffe, Georgia. Georgia O’Keeffe. New York, 1976: color pl. 79.

1988

  • Wilmerding, John. American Masterpieces from the National Gallery of Art. Rev. ed. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1988: 176, repro.

1992

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

1999

  • Lynes, Barbara Buhler. Georgia O'Keeffe: Catalogue Raisonné. 2 vols. New Haven and London, 1999: 1:366, no. 622, color repro.

2000

  • Kirsh, Andrea, and Rustin S. Levenson. Seeing Through Paintings: Physical Examination in Art Historical Studies. Materials and Meaning in the Fine Arts 1. New Haven, 2000: 264.

Inscriptions

on upper member of stretcher reverse: G. O Keeffe; on lower member of stretcher reverse: 1928; on right side of stretcher reverse: #21; by Alfred Stieglitz, except for "Coiled", across center reverse: 1928 / Georgia O'Keeffe (Coiled) / Shell No. 1 / Exhibition 1929; possibly by Alfred Stieglitz, across center reverse, within five-pointed star: OK; across center reverse: #21 / 1928.

Wikidata ID

Q20192764

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