The artwork “O’Keefe” by Charles Demuth, created in 1924, is part of the Precisionist art movement and belongs to the “Poster Portraits” series. It falls under the genre of a poster. This piece is a stylized representation of the American artist Georgia O’Keeffe, using elements and forms to symbolize her personal iconography.
In the artwork, you can observe a potted plant with elongated dark leaves that curl upwards dominating the composition. On the right side, the letters of O’Keeffe’s last name stack up vertically, intersected by horizontal lines, spelled out with striking red typography against a white radiating backdrop. The letter “C” appears isolated on the left side of the composition. The backdrop is divided into geometric shapes and planes with varying colors, including a segment of blue and an off-white area suggesting a wall, perhaps indicating the two-dimensional nature of the poster. On the lower left, a pink-hued pitcher is visible, whereas on the lower right, there’s a depiction of two abstracted forms that bear resemblance to fruits or flowers on a blue plane. This mix of abstracted elements and bold typography creates a dynamic composition, which reflects the influence of Cubism and the visual language of advertising from that era.
