A cow skull appears in Georgia O'Keeffe's 1931 painting Cow's Skull: Red, White, and Blue.
The painting presents a bleached cow skull against a stark field of red, white, and blue. O'Keeffe found animal bones in the New Mexico landscape and treated them as powerful visual forms rather than merely as symbols of death or decay.
The work reflects several recurring elements of her mature style: close attention to an isolated object, simplified space, strong color, and an interest in the distinctive shapes found in the Southwest. The skull's frontal arrangement also gives it a monumental presence despite its relatively simple subject.
The title itself identifies the animal, so “cow skull” is more precise than the broader answer “animal bone.” It is also not a bison or horse skull, despite the way viewers may associate any large skull with the American West.