Red and Orange Streak
Georgia O'Keeffe, 1919
Image not available: work still under copyright
Red and Orange Streak is an oil on canvas by Georgia O'Keeffe, dated 1919 and held by the Philadelphia Museum of Art. She painted it in New York, the city she moved to after leaving Texas. In a letter to a friend, she described her fascination with lightning: a glow that appeared first in one spot and then in another, sometimes as a diffuse sheet of light and at other times as a sharp, bright zigzag crossing the sky. By her own account, she sat on a fence for a long time, simply watching the storm. That direct experience of the atmospheric event shapes the painting, where a luminous band cuts across a warm field dominated by reds and oranges. The work belongs to a group of pieces in which O'Keeffe explores the energy of nature through simplified forms and an intense palette.
- Painter
- Georgia O'Keeffe
- Date
- 1919
- Medium
- oil paint, canvas
- Dimensions
- 69 × 58 cm
- Museum
- Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia County