Georgia O'Keeffe (American, 1887–1986)
Cow's Skull with Calico Roses
INV-6142
Georgia O'Keeffe (American, 1887–1986)1931
Cow's Skull with Calico Roses
Georgia O'Keeffe (American, 1887–1986) →Modernismoil on canvaspainting
Date
1931
Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
91.4 × 61 cm (36 × 24 in.)
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Location
Chicago, IL
Credit
Alfred Stieglitz Collection, gift of Georgia O'Keeffe
Georgia O’Keeffe collected this cow’s skull in New Mexico during the summer of 1930, when a drought had devastated the Southwest, and many animal skeletons could be found in the desert. She was captivated by the stark elegance of the bones and shipped some back to New York so she could paint them the following year. She noted, “To me they are as beautiful as anything I know. . . . The bones seem to cut sharply to the center of something that is keenly alive on the desert.” O’Keeffe’s inclusion of the calico fabric roses—which were used to decorate graves in New Mexico—further evokes questions of life, death, and mortality.
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