Alligator Pears in a Basket

Close up of Alligator Pears in a Basket

A still life of avocados in a basket rendered in charcoal on a white ground uses radically simplified forms. Two offset circles evoke a basket and its shadow. Within the circles, ovals highlighted to imply 3 dimensions, seem to hover above, not sit within, the basket interior
A still life of avocados in a basket rendered in charcoal on a white ground uses radically simplified forms. Two offset circles evoke a basket and its shadow. Within the circles, ovals highlighted to imply 3 dimensions, seem to hover above, not sit within, the basket interior
Georgia O'Keeffe, Alligator Pears in a Basket, 1921; Charcoal on paper, 24 7/8 x 18 7/8 in.; National Museum of Women in the Arts, Gift of Wallace and Wilhelmina Holladay; © 2023 Georgia O’Keeffe Museum/Artists Rights Society, New York

In this charcoal drawing, Georgia O’Keeffe modernizes the age-old subject of the still life. She abstracts the forms of basket and avocados by eliminating color, details, and references to setting, leaving the viewer to contemplate an interplay of forms and spaces. The roundness of the fruit echoes the curves of the basket, and the negative (white) space is as important compositionally as the positive (dark) space occupied by the objects. In 1922, O’Keeffe observed: “Nothing is less real than realism. Details are confusing. It is only by selection, by elimination, by emphasis that we get at the real meaning of things.”

Alligator Pears in a Basket was part of a series of still lifes the artist created during the early 1920s. O’Keeffe was known to repeat compositional elements, including rounded forms, light-dark gradations, and spatial experiments, across the various mediums in which she worked. Her later paintings, such as the series of black river rocks painted in the 1960s and 70s, often bore a close relationship to her earlier drawings.

Artwork Details

  • Artist

    Georgia O’Keeffe
  • Title

    Alligator Pears in a Basket
  • Date

    1921
  • Medium

    Charcoal on paper
  • Dimensions

    27 7/8 x 18 7/8 in
  • Donor Credit

    Gift of Wallace and Wilhelmina Holladay
  • On Display

    Yes