What 1935 Georgia O’Keeffe painting depicts a white hollyhock above a New Mexico landscape?

Ram’s Head, White Hollyhock-Hills is Georgia O’Keeffe’s 1935 painting of a white hollyhock above a New Mexico landscape.

The composition combines several recurring O’Keeffe subjects: a bleached animal skull, a large flower, distant hills, and the intense light of the Southwest. The ram’s skull appears in the foreground, while the hollyhock rises above it and the landscape stretches behind them. The unusual arrangement creates a visual link between fragile organic forms and the enduring desert environment.

O’Keeffe collected bones and other natural objects during trips through New Mexico. She carried them back to her studios and used them as subjects in paintings and drawings. Her skull paintings are not illustrations of a single story; they are carefully composed studies of shape, space, color, and scale.

The title is important because shorter labels can conceal the full arrangement. The work is not merely a flower painting or merely a skull painting. Its documented title joins the ram’s head, white hollyhock, and hills into one distinct composition.