Georgia O'Keeffe's 1944 painting of an animal pelvis is titled Pelvis IV.
The painting belongs to a group of works in which O'Keeffe transformed bones found in the New Mexico landscape into monumental subjects. Pelvis IV presents the bone against a blue background, using its opening as a framing device for the space beyond it.
O'Keeffe collected animal bones and other objects from the desert and incorporated them into paintings throughout the 1930s and 1940s. These works are related to, but not identical with, her famous paintings of cow skulls. The pelvis paintings emphasize the shape of the bone and the view through it rather than treating it simply as a still-life object.
The Roman numeral is important because O'Keeffe made several pelvis paintings. “Pelvis IV” identifies a particular work, while “pelvis series” describes the broader group and is not the canonical title of this painting.