Georgia O'KeeffeAmerican, 1887–1986Blue Sea with Rocks
Can I see it?
Not on view at present
Where is “Blue Sea with Rocks” now? Collection: Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis. Not on view at present. Checked September 29, 2026.
Minneapolis, United States
It belongs to the collection, but is not on display at present.
- Checked
- In this state since
- Source
- The museum
About the work
Georgia O’Keeffe had a special talent for defining the essential character of a place. Throughout her life, she was attracted to places that represented extremes—the man-made canyons in New York City and the desert landscapes of the Southwest. In the 1920s she made several summer visits to York Beach, Maine, finding refuge from the heat and hustle of New York. Blue Sea with Rocks is from her third season there, in 1922.
Read on
At first glance the composition reads as a flat image—perhaps pure abstraction. Then the flatness shifts and becomes infinite depth as we note the white streak marking the horizon. Colors catch our attention—greens in the water and brown, green, and lavender in the rocks. The deep blue of the open ocean fades to lighter tones in the shallow cove. The brown face of the upper rock reveals that the light comes from over the artist’s right shoulder. Abstraction, which earlier in O’Keeffe’s career had been a pure pursuit, has given way to a portrait of a bright summer afternoon.
Minneapolis Institute of Art
Details
- Accession number
- 2017.121
In the catalog
Sources
- Minneapolis Institute of Art
- Image: Minneapolis Institute of Art — © 2017 Georgia O'Keeffe Museum / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
In the life of Georgia O'Keeffe
The whole lifeFebruary 1921
Her portraits in Stieglitz’s retrospective
Stieglitz’s photographs of O’Keeffe were included in his retrospective exhibition at the Anderson Galleries; many were nudes, and it created a public sensation.
1922
Critic Paul Rosenfeld reads “womanhood” into her pictures
The journalist Paul Rosenfeld wrote that the essence of very womanhood permeated her pictures, seeing her colours and shapes as metaphors for the female body. O’Keeffe rejected this reading for decades: in her view, people who read erotic symbols into her paintings were really talking about their own affairs.
from 1923
Becomes a fashionable, well-paid artist
With Stieglitz’s support her landscapes and still lifes — her flowers above all — began to be shown actively, and she became a fashionable and highly paid artist.
1924
A show beside Stieglitz’s photographs
Stieglitz arranged a show of O’Keeffe’s works alongside his own photographs at the Anderson Galleries and in the following years helped to organise other exhibitions of her work.
11 December 1924
Married: Alfred Stieglitz
