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.
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Artwork Details
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Title: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 × 35 7/8 in. (101.3 × 91.1 cm)
Classification:Paintings
Credit Line:Alfred Stieglitz Collection, 1952
Accession Number:52.203
Inscription: Initialed (on cardboard backing, in center of five-pointed star, in graphite): OK
the artist (1931–52; on extended loan to MMA, 1949–52; her gift as part of the Alfred Stieglitz Collection to MMA)
New York. An American Place. "Georgia O'Keeffe: 33 New Paintings," December 27, 1931–February 11, 1932, no catalogue.
Art Institute of Chicago. "Georgia O'Keeffe," January 21–February 22, 1943, no. 44.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "20th Century Painters: A Special Exhibition of Oils, Water Colors and Drawings Selected from the Collections of American Art in the Metropolitan Museum," June 16–October 29, 1950, unnum. brochure (p. 9; permanent loan from the artist).
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Fourteen American Masters: Paintings from Colonial Times to Today," October 16, 1958–January 4, 1959, no catalogue.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Three Centuries of American Painting," April 9–October 17, 1965, unnum. checklist.
The White House, Washington D.C. "The White House Festival of the Arts," June 14, 1965, brochure no. 28.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "American Paintings, Drawings and Watercolors from the Museum's Collections," October 1–December 7, 1969, no catalogue.
New York. Whitney Museum of American Art. "Georgia O'Keeffe," October 8–November 29, 1970, no. 73.
Art Institute of Chicago. "Georgia O'Keeffe," January 6–February 7, 1971, no. 73.
San Francisco Museum of Art. "Georgia O'Keeffe," March 15–April 30, 1971, no. 73.
Moscow. State Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts. "Representations of America," December 15, 1977–February 15, 1978, no catalogue.
Leningrad. State Hermitage Museum. "Representations of America," March 15–May 15, 1978, no catalogue.
Minsk, Belarus. Palace of Art. "Representations of America," June 15–August 15, 1978, no catalogue.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Tribute to a Curator: Robert Beverly Hale," November 16, 1978–March 4, 1979, extended to March 18, 1979, unnum. checklist.
New York. Whitney Museum of American Art. "William Carlos Williams and the American Scene, 1920–1940," December 12, 1978–February 4, 1979, unnumbered cat. (fig. 102).
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Selection One: Twentieth-Century Art," February 1–April 30, 1985, no catalogue.
Canberra. Australian National Gallery. "20th Century Masters from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York," March 1–April 27, 1986, unnumbered cat. (p. 57).
Brisbane. Queensland Art Gallery. "20th Century Masters from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York," May 7–July 1, 1986, unnumbered cat.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Georgia O'Keeffe: 1887–1986," November 19, 1988–February 5, 1989, not in catalogue (unnumbered checklist addenda).
Los Angeles County Museum of Art. "Georgia O'Keeffe: 1887–1986," March 30–June 18, 1989, not in catalogue.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "14 Americans," July 16, 1990–January 2, 1991, no catalogue.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "American Painting: 1905–1950," April 19–October 7, 1991, no catalogue.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "American Still Life: 1915–1950," February 1, 1995–January 28, 1996, no catalogue (on view from June 29, 1995).
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Stieglitz and His Artists: Matisse to O'Keeffe," October 13, 2011–January 2, 2012, no. 189.
Art Institute of Chicago. "America after the Fall: Painting in the 1930s," June 5–September 18, 2016, no. 37.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Making The Met, 1870–2020," August 29, 2020–January 3, 2021, unnumbered cat. (fig. 182).
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Art for the Millions: American Culture and Politics in the 1930s," September 5–December 10, 2023, unnumbered cat. (pl. 51).
Edward Alden Jewell. "Art: Georgia O'Keeffe Shows Work." New York Times (December 29, 1931), p. 28.
Henry McBride. "Skeletons on the Plains: Miss O'Keeffe Returns from the West with Grewsome Trophies." New York Sun (January 2, 1932), p. 8, ill., as "Death and Transformation".
Elizabeth McCausland. "Georgia O'Keeffe Exhibits Skulls and Roses of 1931." Springfield Sunday Union and Republican (January 10, 1932), p. 6E, ill., as "Life and Transformation".
Robert Beverly Hale. 100 American Painters of the 20th Century: Works Selected from the Collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1950, ill. (color) p. 58 and front cover.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art Miniatures. Vol. 17, album W, Twentieth-Century American Painters. New York, 1950, unpaginated, no. 8, ill. (color).
Francis Henry Taylor. Fifty Centuries of Art. New York, 1954, ill. p. 184 (color).
Harrison E. Salisbury. "Molotov Visits Museum and U.N." New York Times (June 16, 1955), p. 3.
James Thrall Soby inNew Art in America: Fifty Painters of the 20th Century. Ed. John I. H. Baur. Greenwich, Conn., 1957, ill. p. 110.
Martin Friedman. "The Precisionist View." Art in America 48, no. 3 ([Fall] 1960), ill. p. 36 (color).
Henry Geldzahler. American Painting in the Twentieth Century. New York, 1965, pp. 132–33, ill.
Doris Reno. "Miami's Old 17th Century Friend Found Shining in a New Setting." Miami Herald (August 22, 1965), p. 21E, ill., calls it "Cow's Skull".
Dorothy Seiberling. "Horizons of a Pioneer: Georgia O'Keeffe in New Mexico." Life 64 (March 1, 1968), cover ill.
George M. Cohen. A History of American Art. New York, 1971, p. 177.
Charles Child Eldredge. "Georgia O'Keeffe: The Development of an American Modern." PhD diss., University of Minnesota, 1971, pp. xv, 258, fig. 45.
Nora B. Beeson. Guide to The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1972, p. 279, no. 8.
Marshall B. Davidson. The American Heritage History of the Artists' America. New York, 1973, pp. 330–31, ill. (color).
Georgia O'Keeffe. Georgia O'Keeffe. New York, 1976, text facing pl. 58, ill.
A. Hyatt Mayor. The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Favorite Paintings. New York, 1979, pp. 100–101, ill. (color).
Howard Hibbard. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1980, pp. 508–9, fig. 922.
Sharyn Rohlfsen Udall. "Modernist Painting in New Mexico 1913–1933." PhD diss., University of New Mexico, 1981, p. 259, fig. 68.
Patricia Janis Broder. The American West: The Modern Vision. Boston, 1984, pp. 158–59, 168, ill.
Lisa Mintz Messinger. "Georgia O'Keeffe." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 42 (Fall 1984), pp. 46–47, 49, 60, fig. 46.
Jan Garden Castro. The Art and Life of Georgia O'Keeffe. New York, 1985, pp. 90, 92.
Sasha M. Newman. Georgia O'Keeffe. Washington, D. C., 1985, p. 29, pl. 14.
Edward Lucie-Smith. Art of the 1930s: The Age of Anxiety. New York, 1985, p. 243, fig. 148.
Michael Desmond in20th Century Masters from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Exh. cat., Australian National Gallery. Canberra, 1986, p. 57, ill. (color).
Edith Evans Asbury. "Georgia O'Keeffe Dead at 98: Shaper of Modern Art in U.S." New York Times (March 7, 1986), p. A17, ill.
Erika Billeter. "Georgia O'Keeffe's Bilder." Du (May 1987), p. 59, ill.
Matt Damsker. "The Met Goes Modern: New Wing a Treasure Box, Even If Collection Has Gaps." Hartford Courant (February 11, 1987), p. C7.
Helen Kohen. "Metropolitan Goes Modern With New Wing." Miami Herald (February 1, 1987), p. 8K, ill.
William Wilson. "A Mod Fan Dance at The Met." Los Angeles Times (February 8, 1987), p. 5.
Amei Wallach. "It's Modern's Time at the Metropolitan." Newsday (January 4, 1987), p. II/5, ill.
Sylvia Hochfield. "Thoroughly Modern Met." Art News 86 (February 1987), p. 115.
Lisa Mintz Messinger. Georgia O'Keeffe. New York, 1988, pp. 72, 76, fig. 54 (color).
Michael Berry. Georgia O'Keeffe. New York, 1988, pp. 70–71, ill.
Anita Pollitzer. A Woman on Paper: Georgia O'Keeffe. New York, 1988, pp. 211–12, ill.
Roxana Robinson. Georgia O'Keeffe: A Life. New York, 1989, pp. 366–67.
Doris Bry and Nicholas Callaway, ed. Georgia O'Keeffe in the West. New York, 1989, pl. 27.
Donald Goddard. American Painting. New York, 1990, ill. p. 195 (color).
Sarah Whitaker Peters. Becoming O'Keeffe: The Early Years. New York, 1991, p. 357 n. 107.
Charles Child Eldredge. Georgia O'Keeffe. New York, 1991, pp. 118–21, ill.
Christopher Merrill and Ellen Bradbury, ed. From the Faraway Nearby: Georgia O'Keeffe as Icon. Reading, Mass., 1992, pp. 63–64, fig. 5.
Elizabeth Montgomery. Georgia O'Keeffe. New York, 1993, pp. 112–13, ill.
Mike Venezia. Georgia O'Keeffe. Chicago, 1993, cover ill.
Maria Costantino. Georgia O'Keeffe. New York, 1994, pp. 35, 118.
Barbara Burn, ed. The Metropolitan Museum of Art Guide. 2nd rev. ed. (1st ed., 1983). New York, 1994, p. 441, no. 19, ill. (color).
Jula Dech. Georgia O'Keeffe: Gemälde. Munich, 1995, fig. 25.
Lois Palken Rudnick. Utopian Vistas: The Mabel Dodge Luhan House and the American Counterculture. Albuquerque, 1996, pp. 134–36, ill.
Lisa Mintz Messinger inThe Georgia O'Keeffe Museum. Ed. Peter H. Hassrick. New York, 1997, p. 41.
M. Sue Kendall in Nannette V. Maciejunes and Michael D. Hall. The Paintings of Charles Burchfield: North by Midwest. Exh. cat., Columbus Museum of Art. Columbus, 1997, p. 97.
Barbara Buhler Lynes. Georgia O'Keeffe: Catalogue Raisonné. New Haven, Conn., 1999, vol. 1, pp. 468–69, no. 773, ill.
Wanda M. Corn. The Great American Thing: Modern Art and National Identity, 1915–1935. Berkeley, 1999, pp. 245–50, 266, 269, 280, 284, 286–88, 290–91, 302–3, 423, figs. 214 (color), 242 (installation photo, An American Place, Exh. New York 1931–32).
Stella Paul. Twentieth-Century Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art: A Resource for Educators. New York, 1999, pp. 67–69, ill. and ill. p. 66 (color), calls it "Red, White and Blue".
Sarah Greenough in Sarah Greenough. Modern Art and America: Alfred Stieglitz and His New York Galleries. Exh. cat., National Gallery of Art. Washington, D. C., 2000, p. 460, fig. 126.
Lisa Mintz Messinger. Georgia O'Keeffe. London, 2001, pp. 82, 126, 128–29, fig. 82.
Barbara Buhler Lynes with Russell Bowman. O'Keeffe's O'Keeffes: The Artist's Collection. Exh. cat., Milwaukee Art Museum. New York, 2001, pp. 50, 169.
Jonathan Weinberg. Ambition and Love in Modern Art. New Haven, 2001, pp. 107–9, 114, fig. 5.2.
Erika Doss. Twentieth-Century American Art. Oxford, 2002, pp. 89–91, fig. 43 (color).
Vivien Green Fryd. Art and the Crisis of Marriage: Edward Hopper and Georgia O'Keeffe. Chicago, 2003, pp. 184–85, fig. 109.
Llorenç Bonet and Sol Kliczkowski, ed. Frank Lloyd Wright, Georgia O'Keeffe. New York, 2003, pp. 88–89, ill.
Danielle Tilkin et al. New York et l'art moderne: Alfred Stieglitz et son cercle (1905–1930). Exh. cat., Musée d'Orsay. Paris, 2004, pp. 236, 238, fig. 74 (Spanish ed., 2004).
Hunter Drohojowska-Philp. Full Bloom: The Art and Life of Georgia O'Keeffe. New York, 2004, pp. 332–33, ill. between pp. 376–77.
Janet Souter. Georgia O'Keeffe. New York, 2005, pp. 117, 120, 122, ill.
John Carlin and Jonathan Fineberg. Imagining America: Icons of 20th-Century American Art. New Haven and London, 2005, pp. 42, 46, 51–52, ill. pp. 48 (overall), 2, 49 (details).
Donna M. Cassidy. Marsden Hartley: Race, Region, and Nation. Hanover, N.H., 2005, p. 23, fig. 1.2.
Susan Wright. Georgia O'Keeffe: An Eternal Spirit. (1st ed., 1996). [New York], 2006, pp. 84–85, ill.
Lothar Schirmer, ed. Georgia O'Keeffe/John Loengard: Paintings and Photographs, a Visit to Abiquiu and Ghost Ranch. Munich, 2006, book jacket (detail ill.), fig. 47.
Jonathan Stuhlman and Barbara Buhler Lynes. Georgia O'Keeffe: Circling Around Abstraction. Exh. cat., Norton Museum of Art. West Palm Beach, 2007, p. 30, fig. 17.
Katja Fauth. Modernist Visions in Taos: Mabel Dodge Luhan and the Artists of the Stieglitz Circle. Marburg, Germany, 2009, pp. 163, 171–73, 192, fig. 35.
Lisa Mintz Messinger inStieglitz and His Artists: Matisse to O'Keeffe. The Alfred Stieglitz Collection in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Ed. Lisa Mintz Messinger. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2011, pp. 8, 14, 193, 202–3, 281, no. 189, ill. (color).
Sarah Greenough, ed. My Faraway One: Selected Letters of Georgia O'Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz. Vol. 1, 1915–1933. New Haven, Conn., 2011, pp. 596, 603–4, 630.
Katherine Hoffman. Alfred Stieglitz: A Legacy of Light. New Haven, 2011, fig. 184 (color).
Holland Cotter. "High Aims for Art's Sake." New York Times (October 14, 2011), p. C25.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art Guide. New York, 2012, p. 416, ill. (color).
Barbara Buhler Lynes and Carolyn Kastner. Georgia O'Keeffe in New Mexico. Exh. cat., Montclair Art Museum. Sante Fe, 2012, pp. 34–35.
Roberta Smith. "A Trans-Atlantic View of Modernism." New York Times (January 9, 2015), p. C30.
Judith A. Barter inAmerica after the Fall: Painting in the 1930s. Ed. Judith A. Barter. Exh. cat., Art Institute of Chicago. Chicago, 2016, pp. 18, 186, no. 37, fig. 2 (color).
Annelise K. Madsen inAmerica after the Fall: Painting in the 1930s. Ed. Judith A. Barter. Exh. cat., Art Institute of Chicago. Chicago, 2016, pp. 103–4, 112 n. 49.
Sarah Kelly Oehler inAmerica after the Fall: Painting in the 1930s. Ed. Judith A. Barter. Exh. cat., Art Institute of Chicago. Chicago, 2016, pp. 65, 67.
Kathryn Calley Galitz. The Metropolitan Museum of Art Masterpiece Paintings. New York, 2016, p. 525, ill. (color), colorpl. 449.
Tanya Barson inGeorgia O'Keeffe. Ed. Tanya Barson. Exh. cat., Tate Modern. London, 2016, pp. 16, 20, 246 nn. 44, 53.
Sarah Greenough inGeorgia O'Keeffe. Ed. Tanya Barson. Exh. cat., Tate Modern. London, 2016, pp. 58, 248 n. 43.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art Guide. New York, 2019, p. 416, ill. (color).
Max Hollein. Modern and Contemporary Art in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2019, p. 7, ill. p. 55 (color).
Douglas Eklund, Marilyn F. Friedman, and Randall R. Griffey inMaking The Met, 1870–2020. Ed. Andrea Bayer with Laura D. Corey. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2020, pp. 166, 253, fig. 182 (color).
Didier Ottinger in Marta Ruiz del Árbol. Georgia O'Keeffe. Exh. cat., Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza. Madrid, 2021, p. 68, fig. 46 (color).
Allison Rudnick. Art for the Millions: American Culture and Politics in the 1930s. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2023, pp. 20, 196, colorpl. 51.
Tamar Boyadjian. "On Labor and Race in Great Depression America." hyperallergic.com. September 27, 2023, ill. (color).
Karen Wilkin. "Yesterday's Tomorrow." New Criterion 42 (December 2023), p. 32.
How did a decade of unprecedented financial strife, radical social upheaval, and technological innovation shape art and cultural identity in the United States?
Georgia O'Keeffe (American, Sun Prairie, Wisconsin 1887–1986 Santa Fe, New Mexico)
1917
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