Georgia O'Keeffe found the pelvis bone she painted repeatedly at Ghost Ranch. The dramatic New Mexico landscape supplied her with bones, cliffs, hills, and other forms that she transformed into highly simplified compositions.
O'Keeffe began visiting New Mexico in 1929 and later maintained a home at Ghost Ranch. She collected animal bones from the desert and carried them back to her studio, where she studied their curves, openings, and relationship to the sky.
The pelvis works are not anatomical illustrations in a scientific sense. O'Keeffe used the bone as a visual structure and symbolic form. Ghost Ranch is distinct from Abiquiú, where she later had her permanent home and studio, although both locations shaped her New Mexico work.