Georgia O’Keeffe’s Pelvis Series used animal pelvis bones against the New Mexico sky.
O’Keeffe began the Pelvis Series in the 1940s, using large, simplified bone forms as subjects. The bones were found objects from the New Mexico landscape, but she transformed them into powerful compositions by enlarging them and placing them against broad fields of color and sky. The resulting works balance recognizable anatomy with abstraction.
She repeatedly painted bones because their shapes, openings, and weathered surfaces offered strong compositional possibilities. Her treatment was not a scientific study of anatomy. Instead, the pelvis became a frame, a curve, and an architectural form through which the viewer could imagine the surrounding landscape.
The series is sometimes mixed up with her paintings of cow skulls. Both involve desert bones, but Pelvis Series specifically identifies works centered on pelvis bones. This distinction makes the series name the single precise answer.