What title is given to Georgia O'Keeffe's 1929 painting of a black cross in the New Mexico desert?
Answer
Black Cross, New Mexico
Georgia O'Keeffe's 1929 painting of a black cross in the New Mexico desert is titled Black Cross, New Mexico.
The work belongs to the group of paintings O'Keeffe made after her visits to New Mexico. It places a dark wooden cross against a broad, luminous landscape, combining a specific regional subject with the simplified forms and strong contrasts associated with her modernist style.
O'Keeffe repeatedly used crosses, churches, adobe buildings, bones, and cliffs as subjects. Her New Mexico paintings were not simply documentary views; she selected and reorganized forms to create compositions that could feel both recognizable and abstract.
The title is sometimes confused with her paintings of animal bones, especially Cow's Skull: Red, White, and Blue. Both belong to her New Mexico period, but Black Cross, New Mexico centers on a cross rather than a skull or pelvis.