Georgia O'Keeffe | Cow's Skull: Red, White, and Blue

Cow's Skull: Red, White, and Blue

Artist: Georgia O'Keeffe (American, Sun Prairie, Wisconsin 1887–1986 Santa Fe, New Mexico)

Date: 1931

Medium: Oil on canvas

Dimensions: 39 7/8 x 35 7/8 in. (101.3 x 91.1 cm)

Classification: Paintings

Credit Line: Alfred Stieglitz Collection, 1952

Accession Number: 52.203

On view in Gallery 900

Label Object Information Related Objects Online Resources Video Audio

Weary of life in the metropolis, O’Keeffe began taking regular retreats to Lake George, New York, and then to New Mexico. After her first extended trip to the Southwest in 1929, her artistic interests shifted from the buildings of New York to the nature of New Mexico. In
this work, O’Keeffe isolates a single skull, highlighting its jagged edges, worn surfaces, and bleached color. To O’Keeffe, such bones represented the desert’s enduring beauty and the strength of the American spirit, which is alluded to in the striped background. In 1949 O’Keeffe settled permanently in New Mexico, where she lived until her death in 1986.

Signatures, Inscriptions, and Markings

Inscription: Initialed (on cardboard backing, in center of five-pointed star, in graphite: OK
Exhibition History

William Carlos Williams and the American Scene, 1920-1940. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, December 12, 1978 - February 4, 1979. Exhibition catalogue by Dickran Tashjian, pp. 123, 125, 164 (checklist), illustrated p. 123 fig. 102

Australia: Australian National Gallery, Mar. 1-Apr. 27, 1986; Queensland Art Gallery, May 7-July 1, 1986. ¦20th Century Masters from The Metropolitan Museum of Art¦. exh. cat., p. 57 (illus. in color).
References

Nora B. Beeson. Guide to The Metropolitan Museum of Art. MMA. NY, 1972, p. 279, illustrated p. 279 no. 8.

Elizabeth Montgomery. Georgia O'Keeffe. New York: Barnes and Noble, Inc., 1993. Pg. 112, illus.

Tilkin, Danielle, et al. New York et L'Art Moderne: Alfred Stieglitz et son Cercle (1905-1930), Editions de la Reunion des musees nationaux, Paris,
2004. p. 236, no. 74, illustrated in color.