What was the title of Georgia O'Keeffe's 1935 painting featuring a white skull and desert flowers?
Answer
Ram's Head, White Hollyhock-Hills
Answer
Ram's Head, White Hollyhock-Hills
The title of Georgia O'Keeffe's 1935 painting featuring a white skull and desert flowers is Ram's Head, White Hollyhock-Hills.
O'Keeffe painted the work in 1935 after becoming deeply interested in bones and other objects found in the New Mexico landscape. A ram's skull is positioned against a broad blue sky, with white hollyhocks and distant hills adding both botanical and geographic references. The combination turns found desert materials into a carefully balanced modernist image.
The painting reflects O'Keeffe's practice of isolating natural forms and enlarging or repositioning them so viewers notice shape, texture, and space. Her bone paintings are often interpreted as symbols of the Southwest, but O'Keeffe resisted reducing them to a single meaning and emphasized her visual experience of the objects.
The title is easy to confuse with Cow's Skull: Red, White, and Blue, another well-known O'Keeffe painting. The skull, flowers, and New Mexico setting identify the 1935 work as Ram's Head, White Hollyhock-Hills.
Source: Wikipedia · fact-checked Sept. 2026