One Hundred Flowers (1987)

A gorgeous and sumptuous collection of one hundred of Georgia O'Keefe's flowers, which are not the major part of the artist she was, but for which she is justly well-known. The flowers are surreal in their riotous color and expansiveness. Georgia O'Keeffe may have denied this was her intent, but many of the flowers convey sexual overtones, and there is one that puts me in mind of a ballet dancer; another reminds me of the lava spray of a bursting volcano. There is a short afterword by the editor, which is interesting, but the flowers are really sufficient unto themselves, and that is wisely just how they are presented in this book. ( )

The nice thing about this book is that it contains large prints of O'Keeffe's works. It isn't printed on the highest quality paper or with the greatest clarity with the clearest inks, but it's decent as a quick reference.

My particular copy had marks on a couple of pages where the ink appears to have fouled up, but then it was something like 75% off at Barnesandnoble.com.

O'Keeffe's paintings? Amazing, fantastic, gorgeous. The book it's in? Pretty good, but not quite worth of its contents. ( )