Georgia O'Keeffe made most of her skull paintings in New Mexico.
O'Keeffe first visited New Mexico in 1929 and returned repeatedly before moving there permanently after Alfred Stieglitz's death. The region's desert terrain, bones, adobe architecture, and intense light became central subjects in her mature work. She often collected animal bones and carried them back to her studios for painting.
Works such as Ram's Head, White Hollyhock and Little Hills combine a bleached animal skull with flowers and expansive landscapes. These paintings are not simply literal records of specimens; O'Keeffe transformed found objects through close cropping, unusual scale, and bold color.
Her skull pictures are sometimes mistaken for Southwestern folk art or documentary images. They belong more precisely to her modernist practice, in which ordinary or natural forms become powerful abstract designs. New Mexico was the essential setting for this sustained body of work.