Sisters Doing it for Themselves: O'Keeffe Smashes Auction Record

American artist Georgia O’Keeffe has shattered the record for the highest price for an artwork by a woman at auction for a whopping £28.8 million at Sotheby’s, New York. While the figure is positively gobsmacking, at least we can be reassured that the money is destined to fund the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum rather than the pockets of a private collector.

Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1 was only estimated at £9.5 million, but was bought by Lisa Dennison, chairman Sotheby’s North and South America, on behalf of an anonymous client following a bitter bidding war. You might recognise the striking painting of a simple white blossom as part of O’Keeffe’s series of magnified flowers which she made to allow busy New Yorkers to appreciate nature and have often been interpreted as a celebration of female genitalia. O'Keeffe herself was a well-regarded imitative realist painter who married world renowned photographer Alfred Stieglitz and made her home in New Mexico following his death in 1946.

The current title holder for the most expensive piece of art ever sold is a triptych of Lucian Freud by Francis Bacon which sold for an incredible £90.8 million at Christie’s New York last year. Before O’Keeffe’s rise, the highest record for a female artist was only £7.5 million for an untitled work by Joan Mitchell earlier this year at Sotheby’s New York. We’re saying nothing…