Cow’s Skull with Calico Roses
Georgia O’Keeffe
Sahil Patel
Period 5
Artist Biography
• Born on November 15, 1877 in Sun Prairie,
Wisconsin
• Studied art at the Art Institute of Chicago and the Art
Students League in New York
• Grew up in both Sun Prairie and Williamsburg,
Virginia
• Married Alfred Stieglitz, a pioneer photographer, in
1924
• Died March 6, 1986 in Santa Fe, New Mexico
Visual Analysis
• Her skull paintings can be seen to represent
the death and destruction of the American
landscape
• They can also be seen as tributes to the
animals of the Western landscape
Historical and Contextual Analysis
• While living in New Mexico, O’Keefe’s source
of inspiration came from the misunderstood
beauty of the desert
• Her flower idea came from a time when she
was sorting artificial flowers"when someone came to the kitchen door. As I went to
answer the door, I stuck a pink rose in the eye socket of a
horse's skull. And when I came back the rose looked pretty
fine, so I thought I would just go with that."
Significance
• This piece showed off the beauty of the desert
• The piece can be depicted as quietude,
remoteness and perseverance
• Although the use of flowers is indicative of the
Southwestern influence since artificial flowers
are often used to decorate Hispanic graves,
most eastern viewers of these paintings found
them more strange than anything else.