Georgia O’Keeffe painted Blue and White Abstraction in 1958, by which time she had permanently moved to Abiquiu, New Mexico. Since she first visited New Mexico in 1929, O’Keeffe consistently mined the extraordinary landscape of this unique place for subject matter. The spectacularly expansive sky above the desert often caught her attention—this is exhibited in the present work, in which she captures a bird in flight. Through the artist’s unique lens, however, the bird is merely implied rather than concretely identified. Filling the picture plane with the sinuous lines and curves of its form, O’Keeffe rejects conventional notions of space, depth and perspective. Removing the environmental cues that would typically allow for instant recognition of the subject, she compels her viewer to consider it less as a likeness of the bird, and instead as an abstract design of overlapping planes and shapes... [http://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2017/american-art-n09689]/lot.25.html