City Night 1926

In this painting, Georgia O’Keeffe looked up in the city at night and captured something powerful with stark shapes and moody colors. I imagine her painting this, slowly building up layers of deep blue for the night sky, contrasting with the towering blacks of the buildings. There’s something about how she’s simplified the architecture, almost abstracting it, that really resonates with me. The lines are so clean, so deliberate. You can almost feel the weight of the buildings pressing down, but also the lightness of that little star, and the moon, peeking through. I can see echoes of O’Keeffe’s other work here, like her close-up flowers, but now she’s zoomed out, looking at something vast and impersonal. It reminds me of the way painters are always responding to each other, taking cues and pushing back, in this never-ending conversation about how to see the world, and what to paint. Ultimately, painting is an ongoing dance of expression.