- Title
- Horse's Skull with Pink Rose
- Date Made
- 1931
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- Canvas: 40 × 30 in. (101.6 × 76.2 cm); Frame (Framed): 40 1/4 x 30 1/4 x 1 1/4 in.
- Accession Number
- AC1994.159.1
- Collecting Area
- American Art
- Curatorial Notes
After spending the summer of 1929 in New Mexico, Georgia O’Keeffe began to incorporate desert motifs into her earlier flower subjects. In this modern vanitas painting (Renaissance still life, where skulls symbolize the "vanity" of earthly pursuits), she juxtaposes a sun-bleached horse’s skull with a rose to evoke death and the fleeting nature of beauty and being.
- Provenance
Mrs. Charles H. Davis, New York (unknown date). The artist 1946; Estate of the artist 1986; Georgia O’Keeffe Foundation 1993, gifted 1994 to; LACMA.
- Selected Bibliography
- Los Angeles County Museum of Art. New York: Thames and Hudson, 2003.
- LACMA: Obras Maestras 1750-1950: Pintura Estadounidense Del Museo De Arte Del Condado De Los Angeles. Mexico, D.F.: Museo Nacional de Arte, 2006.
- Rubin, Susan Goldman. Wideness & Wonder: the Life and Art of Georgia O'Keeffe. San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2011.
- Kim, Woollin, Jinmyung Kim, and Songhyuk Yang, eds. Art Across America. Seoul: National Museum of Korea, 2013.
- Miller, Angela, and Chris McAuliffe, eds. America: Painting a Nation. Sydney: Art Gallery of New South Wales, 2013.
- Roberts, Ellen E. O'Keeffe, Stettheimer, Torr, Zorach: Women Modernists in New York. West Palm Beach, Florida: Norton Museum of Art, 2016.
- Georgia O'Keeffe et ses Amis Photographes. Paris: Somogy Éditions d'Art, 2015.
- Barson, Tanya, ed. Georgia O'Keeffe. New York: Abrams, 2016.
- Alligood, Chad, Linda DeBerry, and Lauren Haynes, eds. The Beyond: Georgia O'Keeffe and Contemporary Art. Bentonville, Arkansas: Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, 2018.
- Feldman, Anita, editor. O'Keeffe and Moore. San Diego: The San Diego Museum of Art, 2023.
- Norby, Patricia Marroquin. "The Abiqueños and the Artist: Rethinking O'Keeffe." American Historical Review 129 no.1 (2024): 114-132.
- Copyright
- © Museum Associates/LACMA
