Georgia O'Keeffe Painting Sells For $44.4 Million; 'Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1' Breaks Auction Record For A Work By A Female Artist; Quadruples Previous Record [PHOTO]

A Georgia O'Keeffe painting titled "Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1" has set a new auction record for the most expensive work of art by a woman. According to TIME, it sold for a whopping $44.4 million at Sotheby's on Thursday, quadrupling the previous auction record holder: an untitled painting by Joan Mitchell that sold for $11.9 million.

The painting was made in 1932, and was sold during the auction house's sale of American art. According to People Magazine, the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe, New Mexico, sold the painting in order to benefit its acquisitions fund. Jezebel reports that the museum is "the single largest depository of O'Keeffe's work in the world."

Sotheby's New York estimated the work to be worth roughly $15 million, but it seems that the price shot up after a bidding war between two rivaling bidders. The buyer bid by telephone, and as of now, the auction house is not disclosing the buyer's identity.

TIME describes O'Keeffe's style of painting, stating, "When Georgia O'Keeffe paints flowers, she does not paint fifty flowers stuffed into a dish. On most of her canvases there appeared one gigantic bloom, its huge feathery petals furled into some astonishing pattern of color and shade and line... It is enough to say that Ms. O'Keeffe's paintings are as full of passion as the verses of Solomon's Song."

According to the Huffington Post, magnified flowers were one of O'Keeffe's favorite subjects to paint. She made it her mission to highlight their intricate delicacy and complicated structures, stating, "When you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it's your world for the moment. I want to give that world to someone else. Most people in the city rush around so, they have no time to look at a flower. I want them to see it whether they want to or not."

The Guardian's Kira Cochrane has stated, "An audit of the art world shows that every artist in the top 100 auction sales last year was a man." However, she noted that things are changing. The art world will surely take notice of women's rising power in an often male-dominated market.

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Georgia O'Keeffe
Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1
Sotheby's
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