Which Georgia O’Keeffe painting features a black steer skull, a red, white, and blue design, and a New Mexico landscape?

Georgia O’Keeffe’s Cow’s Skull: Red, White, and Blue features a black steer skull with a red, white, and blue composition.

O’Keeffe painted the work in 1931, using a bleached animal skull as the central form. She found bones in the New Mexico desert and often carried them home as objects to study and paint. Their weathered shapes became symbols of the region’s harsh environment and enduring natural forms.

The skull is suspended against a simplified landscape and sky, while the colors evoke the American flag without turning the painting into a conventional patriotic scene. O’Keeffe’s precise arrangement gives the bone both physical presence and emblematic force.

The title is often confused with Ram’s Head, White Hollyhock—Hills, another New Mexico painting involving a bone. Cow’s Skull is distinguished by its steer skull and explicit red, white, and blue palette.