{"secondaryobjectnumber":null,"periodterms":[],"creditline":"Gift of David H. McAlpin, Class of 1920","caption":"Georgia O'Keeffe (1887–1986; born Sun Prairie, WI; died Santa Fe, NM; active New York and New Mexico), Narcissa's Last Orchid, 1940. Pastel; 54.5 x 69.1 cm, 74.5 × 89.7 × 4.5 cm (frame). Gift of David H. 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Jones,<em> Selections from The Art Museum, Princeton University, </em>(Princeton,&nbsp;NJ: The Art Museum, Princeton University, 1986)","citation":"Allen Rosenbaum and Francis F. Jones,<em> Selections from The Art Museum, Princeton University, </em>(Princeton,&nbsp;NJ: The Art Museum, Princeton University, 1986), p. 141 (illus.)","date":1986,"id":1899,"uri":"https://search.worldcat.org/title/14244748"},{"boilertext":"<i>Princeton University Art Museum: Handbook of the Collections </i>(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Art Museum, 2013)","citation":"<i>Princeton University Art Museum: Handbook of the Collections </i>(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Art Museum, 2013), p. 351","date":2013,"id":1994,"uri":"https://search.worldcat.org/title/865020505"},{"boilertext":"David Turner and Barbara Haskell, <EM>Georgia O'Keeffe, works on paper: [an exhibition ... Sept. 14 - Nov. 17, 1985]</EM>, (Santa Fe, NM: Museum of New Mexico Press, 1985).","citation":"David Turner and Barbara Haskell, <EM>Georgia O'Keeffe, works on paper: [an exhibition ... Sept. 14 - Nov. 17, 1985]</EM>, (Santa Fe, NM: Museum of New Mexico Press, 1985)., p. 83; pl. 32","date":1985,"id":6052,"uri":"https://search.worldcat.org/title/241560463"},{"boilertext":"Nicholas Callaway, <EM>Georgia O’Keeffe: One Hundred Flowers</EM>, (New York: Knopf in association with Callaway Editions, 1987).","citation":"Nicholas Callaway, <EM>Georgia O’Keeffe: One Hundred Flowers</EM>, (New York: Knopf in association with Callaway Editions, 1987)., pl. 92","date":1987,"id":6053,"uri":"https://search.worldcat.org/title/15630362"},{"boilertext":"Jennifer Saville, <EM>Georgia O’Keeffe, paintings of Hawai’i</EM>, (Honolulu, HI: Honolulu Academy of Arts, 1990). ","citation":"Jennifer Saville, <EM>Georgia O’Keeffe, paintings of Hawai’i</EM>, (Honolulu, HI: Honolulu Academy of Arts, 1990). , p. 36","date":1990,"id":6054,"uri":"https://search.worldcat.org/title/23079609"},{"boilertext":"Nancy Frazier, <EM>Georgia O'Keeffe</EM>, (New York: Crescent Books, 1990).","citation":"Nancy Frazier, <EM>Georgia O'Keeffe</EM>, (New York: Crescent Books, 1990)., p. 36-37 (illus.)","date":1990,"id":6055,"uri":"https://search.worldcat.org/title/22992028"},{"boilertext":"Maria Costantino, <EM>Georgia O'Keeffe</EM>, (New York, NY: Smithmark, 1994).","citation":"Maria Costantino, <EM>Georgia O'Keeffe</EM>, (New York, NY: Smithmark, 1994)., p. 110-111 (illus.)","date":1994,"id":6056,"uri":"https://search.worldcat.org/title/31703851"},{"boilertext":"Ruth Fine, Barbara Buhler Lynes, Elizabeth Glassman and Judith C. Walsh, <EM>O'Keeffe on paper</EM>, (Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art; Santa Fe: Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, 2000).","citation":"Ruth Fine, Barbara Buhler Lynes, Elizabeth Glassman and Judith C. Walsh, <EM>O'Keeffe on paper</EM>, (Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art; Santa Fe: Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, 2000)., cat. no. 50; p. 131 (color illus.); p. 70-71","date":2000,"id":6058,"uri":"https://search.worldcat.org/title/43167968"},{"boilertext":"<EM>Georgia O'Keeffe: new paintings</EM>, (New York: An American Place, 1941). ","citation":"<EM>Georgia O'Keeffe: new paintings</EM>, (New York: An American Place, 1941). ","date":1941,"id":6059,"uri":"https://search.worldcat.org/title/883712354"},{"boilertext":"John Wilmerding et al., <i>American Art in the Princeton University Art Museum: volume 1: drawings and watercolors</i>,<i> </i>(Princeton: Princeton University Art Museum; New Haven, CT; London: Yale University Press, 2004)","citation":"John Wilmerding et al., <i>American Art in the Princeton University Art Museum: volume 1: drawings and watercolors</i>,<i> </i>(Princeton: Princeton University Art Museum; New Haven, CT; London: Yale University Press, 2004), p. 224, cat. no. 57; p. 225 (illus.); p. 339, checklist no. 837","date":2004,"id":420,"uri":"https://search.worldcat.org/title/57236887"},{"boilertext":"\"Acquisitions of the Art Museum 1982\", <em>Record of the Art Museum, Princeton University</em> 42, no. 1 (1983): p. 50-70.","citation":"\"Acquisitions of the Art Museum 1982\", <em>Record of the Art Museum, Princeton University</em> 42, no. 1 (1983): p. 50-70., p. 62-63 (illus.)","date":1983,"id":3149,"uri":"https://www.jstor.org/stable/3774638"},{"boilertext":"<i>Princeton University Art Museum: Handbook of the Collection</i> (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007)","citation":"<i>Princeton University Art Museum: Handbook of the Collection</i> (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007), p. 299 (illus.)","date":2007,"id":474,"uri":"https://search.worldcat.org/title/191864564"},{"boilertext":"Michael Plante, <I>Ida Kohlmeyer: systems of color,</I> (New York: Hudson Hills Press in association with Newcomb Art Gallery, Tulane University, distributed in the U.S. and Canada by National Book Network, 2004).<BR><BR><BR><I></I>","citation":"Michael Plante, <I>Ida Kohlmeyer: systems of color,</I> (New York: Hudson Hills Press in association with Newcomb Art Gallery, Tulane University, distributed in the U.S. and Canada by National Book Network, 2004).<BR><BR><BR><I></I>, fig. 6; p. 13 (illus.)","date":2004,"id":151,"uri":"https://search.worldcat.org/title/56591294"}],"nowebuse":"False","periods":[],"department":"Prints and Drawings","attribute_groups":[{"id":2199325,"term":"North American Art","termtype":"Collecting Area"},{"id":2199327,"term":"Prints and Drawings","termtype":"Collecting Area"}],"daterange":"A.D. 1900-1945","dateend":1940,"depicted":[],"titles":[{"title":"Narcissa's Last Orchid","titletype":"Published","displayorder":1}],"hasimage":"true","creditlinerepro":"© Georgia O'Keeffe Museum / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York","objectnumber":"x1982-357","inscribed":null,"texts":[{"texttype":"Online","textpurpose":"Gallery Label","textentryhtml":"Here, O'Keeffe exploits the directness and tactility of drawing in pastel, using her finger to massage the color into the paper to create painterly effects. She first used pastel at the New York Art Students League in 1907–8. The orchid pictured was a gift to O’Keeffe from her friend Narcissa Swift King, who, offended she was not thanked, declared, \"That’s the last orchid you’ll ever get from me!\" Nevertheless, the two women remained friendly. O’Keeffe had previously likened perceiving a flower to nurturing a friendship: \"Still—in a way— nobody sees a flower—really—it is so small—we haven’t time— and to see takes time like to have a friend takes time.\" ","remarks":"PBL rotation July 2019\r\n"},{"texttype":"Online","textpurpose":"Handbook Entry","textentryhtml":"\r\nGeorgia O’Keeffe first used pastel as a student of William Merritt Chase at the Art Students League in New York in 1907–8. Since pastel and charcoal are direct media, unlike oil painting, her early works on paper were the initial vehicles for the pursuit of a visual language. Although she employed charcoal only intermittently, O’Keeffe worked in pastel consistently throughout her long career. From Arthur <BR>Wesley Dow, she learned to draw by extending her entire arm while holding the implement upright. Employing the same technique in her pastels, O’Keeffe also adopted the habit of using her finger-tips to massage the medium into the support, enabling her to exploit the matte surface to painterly effect, as in <I>Narcissa’s Last Orchid</I>.The splayed white blossom echoes the forms in the artist’s bone and antler paintings from the 1930s. Here she deposits a rim of white pigment dust along the edges of the petals, endowing them with a tactile quality and creating the illusion of three-dimensionality in places where the petals appear to fold back on themselves, casting shadows. The flower itself seems to merge with the landscape behind it, and strokes of pink and blue fleck its white fringe. </P>\r\nAs the title suggests, this is a specific orchid. Narcissa Swift King, a friend of O’Keeffe’s in New York, sent her an orchid that became the basis for this pastel, which was first exhibited in 1941 at Alfred Stieglitz’s gallery An American Place. Disappointed that she had not been thanked, Swift King is said to have declared, \"That’s the last orchid you’ll ever get from <I>me</I>!\" Hence O’Keeffe’s title. In spite of the incident, the two women remained friendly. In the notes she wrote to accompany an exhibition at An American Place a year earlier, O’Keeffe had in fact likened the activity of perceiving a flower to that of nurturing a friendship: \"Still — in a way — nobody sees a flower — really — it is so small — we haven’t time — and to see takes time like to have a friend takes time.\" </P></SPAN>","remarks":null}],"datebegin":1940,"sortnumber":"1982  357x","published_date":"2026-03-07 02:00:19.421987","objectid":14878,"dimensions":"54.5 x 69.1 cm (21 7/16 x 27 3/16 in.)\r\nframe: 74.5 × 89.7 × 4.5 cm (29 5/16 × 35 5/16 × 1 3/4 in.)","on_view":false}