O'Keeffe painting sets female art record

Georgia O'Keeffe painted the simple white blossom of a weed. Photo: AP

A floral painting by the late US artist Georgia O'Keeffe has sold for $44.4m (£28.8m) at auction, setting a record for an artwork by a female artist.

The piece smashes the previous record of $11.9m (£7.5m) for an untitled work by Joan Mitchell, set in May.

Georgia O'Keeffe

Sotheby's in New York said the $15m (£9.5m) estimate on O'Keeffe's work was shattered after an intense bidding war between two rivals.

The art auction record is $142.4m (£90.8m) for a Francis Bacon piece.

The British artist's triptych, Three Studies of Lucien Freud, was sold at auction last year.

O'Keeffe, who died in 1986 at the age of 98, was celebrated for her large-format depictions of flowers which she painted as if they had been seen in close-up.

Her Jimson Weed/White Flower No 1 smashed her previous best of $6.2m (£3.9m) set in 2001, and was one of three works which were placed in the sale.

It was offered at auction by the O'Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe, New Mexico, which holds a large body of the artist's works.

The proceeds of the sale will be put towards the museum's acquisitions funds.

Alfred Stieglitz photograph of O'Keeffe with sketchpad and watercolors, 1918.

O'Keeffe worked for much of her earlier life in New York, where she captured the city's overwhelming architecture, but later moved to New Mexico, where she painted its huge landscapes.

Elizabeth Goldberg, Sotheby's head of American painting, said the landmark sale "places Georgia O'Keeffe's work in the top tier of 20th Century artists on the market internationally, where it has always belonged".

The auction house added that her floral images "stand among the most recognisable images in both art history and popular culture".