Georgia O'Keeffe

Georgia Totto O’Keeffe was an American modernist artist. She was known for her paintings of enlarged flowers, New York skyscrapers, and New Mexico landscapes. O’Keeffe has been called the “Mother of American modernism”.

Georgia O’Keeffe’s reputation rests in part on the idea that many of her paintings evoke a certain part of the female anatomy. O’Keeffe herself angrily rejected the notion that her compositions—especially her floral studies—were symbolic representations of vaginas, but the idea has stuck. Nevertheless, there so much more to the artist’s work, which could be described as a blend of symbolism, precisionism and abstraction.

Cow’s Skull: Red, White, and Blue depicts a cow skull centered in front of what appears to be a cloth background. In the center of the background is a vertical black stripe. On either side of that are two vertical stripes of white laced with blue. At the outside of the painting are two vertical red stripes.

To O’Keeffe, the bone represented the strength within the America soul, which is further insinuated by the background colors of red, white, and blue.

At the time this artwork was made numerous American artists in different fields were creating compositions dependent on American subjects. Rather than speak to the pervasive thoughts of America at the time, O’Keeffe portrays a bovine skull at the focal point of the canvas with the three shades of the American banner behind it. This image has since become a quintessential symbol of the American West.