Georgia O'Keeffe, the first influential American female artist, a receiver of the United States Medal of Freedom and Medal of Art, is among the most compelling artists of the twentieth century. Her distinct view of bones, flowers, southwestern landscape, churches, crosses, and other subjects are strikingly forceful and expressive even to this day.

O'Keeffe's brilliant combination of objective and subjective elements gained much of my interest from the first sight on. She took her perception of the world and forced it through her art. Every one of her artworks is formed by a variety of her personal experiences, feelings, and surroundings.

One of O'Keeffe's styles uses proportional images as her subjects, such as the "Single Lily with Red" on the right. This painting was created in 1928, when O'Keeffe was 41 years old. Her paintings of flowers are always on very big canvases, with simplified forms of flowers, and almost...