The lush Seaweed now resurfaces to public view for the first time since its only showing in 1924 and to auction for the first time ever. O’Keeffe painted it around 1923, after a series of trips to coastal Maine and Lake George, New York, focused her attention on seascapes. Her depiction of the aquatic plant is lifelike, yet not literal—a manifestation of O’Keeffe’s signature style.
“This example is intimate in scale and demonstrates the tenuous balance between abstraction and realism that became central to O’Keeffe’s aesthetic,” said Charlotte Mitchell, specialist in Sotheby’s American Art department.
In New York on March 5, Sotheby’s will offer the diminutive painting, estimated at $300,000-500,000, alongside more than one hundred works of art and personal effects from the collection of artist Juan Hamilton. Kayla Carlsen, head of Sotheby’s American Art, referred to the collection as a “time capsule.”