What is the title of Georgia O'Keeffe's 1931 painting featuring a cow skull, an American flag, and a New Mexico landscape?
Answer
Cow's Skull: Red, White, and Blue
Georgia O'Keeffe's 1931 painting featuring a cow skull, an American flag, and a New Mexico landscape is Cow's Skull: Red, White, and Blue.
The oil painting places a weathered cow skull against a blue sky and a striped red-and-white background that evokes the United States flag. O'Keeffe found animal bones in the New Mexico desert and used them as powerful, simplified forms in many paintings.
The work combines a recognizable national symbol with the stark remains of an animal, creating an image that can be read through landscape, mortality, and American identity. O'Keeffe's New Mexico paintings often make ordinary regional objects appear monumental.
This title is easily confused with other bone paintings, including Ram's Head, White Hollyhock-Hills and Pelvis series works. The specific combination of cow skull, flag colors, and 1931 date identifies this painting.