Georgia O’Keeffe’s paintings featuring enlarged animal bones are commonly known as her pelvis series. She began making these works after finding bones in the New Mexico landscape, and the pelvis became one of her most recognizable bone motifs.
The bones were not merely anatomical studies. O’Keeffe placed them against intense blue skies or open desert backgrounds, creating compositions that joined physical structure with ideas of space, endurance, and the passage of time. The openings in the pelvis bones could frame the sky like abstract windows.
O’Keeffe painted many kinds of bones, including skulls and vertebrae, so not every bone painting belongs to the pelvis group. The title Bone series is broader, while pelvis paintings identify the specific motif asked about here. Her use of bones also shows how closely her art was tied to walking, collecting, and observing the New Mexico environment.