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nature “distilled to their essential colors, shapes, and designs,”28 Perhaps the
quintessential ‘American’ painting by O’Keeffe is the famous Cow's Skull: Red, White
and Blue (1931) which now hangs in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. One of many
images of bones collected during her summers in New Mexico, this skull has a striped
background that uses the colors of the American flag. This painting appears in the Viking
collection with the following musing by the artist:
In my Amarillo days cows had been so much a part of the country I
couldn’t think of it without them. As I was working I thought of the city
men I had been seeing in the East. They talked so often of writing the
Great American Novel—the Great American Play—the Great American
Poetry. I am not sure that they aspired to the Great American Painting.
Cezanne was so much in the air that I think the Great American Painting
didn’t even seem a possible dream. I knew the middle of the country—
knew quite a bit of the South—I knew the cattle country—and I know that
our country was lush and rich. I had driven across the country many times.
I was quite excited over our country and I knew that at that time almost
any one of those great minds would have been living in Europe if it had
been possible for them. They didn’t even want to live in New York—how
was the Great American Thing going to happen? So as I painted along on
my cow’s skull on blue I thought to myself, “I’ll make it an American
painting. They will not think it great with the red stripes down the sides—
Red, White and Blue—but they will notice it.29
This painting has become an icon of twentieth century American art, but at the time
it was unique. During the 1930’s many artists, musicians, and writers were interested in
developing an indigenous American art form; however most of these artists were much
more literal than O’Keeffe in their portrayal of agricultural landscapes and urban life.30
The Metropolitan Museum of Art “Cow’s Skull: Red, White, and Blue”
http://www.metmuseum.org/works_of_art/collection_database/modem_art/cow_s_skull_
red_white_and_blue_georgia_o_keeffe/objectview.aspx?collID=21&OID=210008920
(accessed 5 Febmary 2010).
29
O’Keeffe, 58.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art “Cow’s Skull: Red, White, and Blue”
http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/geok/ho_52.203.htm (accessed 5 Febmary 2010).