Artwork
Ram's Head, White Hollyhock-Hills
Ram's Head, White Hollyhock-Hills is an oil painting by the Abstract Expressionist artist Georgia O'Keeffe. It dates from 1935 and is held in the collection of the Brooklyn Museum. Created in 1935, this oil on canvas by Georgia O’Keeffe is part of the Brooklyn Museum’s collection.
About this work
Overview
The composition features a ram’s skull, its curved horns extending outward, with a solitary white hollyhock blossom attached to one horn.
Created in 1935, this oil on canvas by Georgia O’Keeffe is part of the Brooklyn Museum’s collection. The composition features a ram’s skull, its curved horns extending outward, with a solitary white hollyhock blossom attached to one horn. Behind the central objects, a muted New Mexico landscape of low, brown hills and a soft, cloud‑streaked sky recedes, allowing the skeletal form to dominate the visual field.
Subject & Meaning
The work juxtaposes the starkness of an animal skull with the delicate purity of a hollyhock flower, suggesting a dialogue between mortality and renewal. The barren hills evoke the arid environment of the American Southwest, while the inclusion of the blossom introduces a note of vitality. Such contrasts have been linked to the harsh conditions of the Dust Bowl era, when skeletal remains became common visual symbols of survival.
Technique & Style
O’Keeffe employs a restrained palette of earth tones and soft whites, rendering the skull with precise, clean lines that emphasize its anatomical structure. The brushwork is smooth, allowing the forms to appear almost sculptural against the diffuse background. This approach marks a departure from her earlier, more representational canvases, moving toward a simplified, surreal presentation that foregrounds shape and color over detailed realism.
History & Provenance
First exhibited shortly after its completion, the painting entered the Brooklyn Museum’s holdings where it remains on view. Contemporary critic Lewis Mumford praised it as a particularly luminous example of O’Keeffe’s output, while later scholars Deanna MacDonald and Geoff Smith highlighted its expressive coloration and intimate connection to natural forms in their survey of notable New York paintings.
Artist & collection
Artist
Georgia Totto O'Keeffe (November 15, 1887 – March 6, 1986) was an American modernist painter and draftswoman whose career spanned seven decades and whose work remained largely independent of major art movements.
