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Lot Essay
Georgia O'Keeffe's lifelong fascination with the forms and colors that she found in nature manifested itself in her various depictions of diverse physical forms. Natural objects ranging from wonderfully sensuous shells and exotic flowers, to more modest objects such as autumn leaves and skunk cabbage found their way equally into her paintings. In New Mexico, O'Keeffe famously painted the natural landscape in a Modernist style, which emphasized the monumental and spiritual qualities of the Southwest. In 1931, the artist began experimenting with animal bones in her work, and in doing so commenced a series of highly original compositions that would continue to occupy her for the next twenty-five years. As with the best of her bone paintings and drawings, Goat's Horns with Blue presents a stark, iconic image suggestive of the rugged beauty of the Western landscape.
When she first came to New Mexico in 1929, O'Keeffe became passionate about the natural objects she found in the desert and began a collection of stones and bones worn by wind and water. They became her "symbols" of the desert. In 1939, when O'Keeffe exhibited the first of these bone paintings at Alfred Stieglitz's gallery, An American Place, she wrote in a statement published in the exhibition catalogue how the bones came to represent the desert for her: "To me they are as beautiful as anything I know. To me they are strangely more living than the animals walking around...The bones seem to cut sharply to the center of something that is keenly on the desert even tho' it is vast and empty and untouchable--and knows no kindness with all its beauty." (as quoted in L. Goodrich, Georgia O'Keeffe, New York, 1970, p. 23)
O'Keeffe's first bone paintings are among some of her most famous images, including Cow's Skull: Red, White and Blue (1931, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York), in which she isolates a cow's skull against red, white and blue to create a simple and powerful composition, while branding her composition as a wholly American one. The same year, O'Keeffe began incorporating her signature flowers into her skull compositions, resulting in dramatic works such as Cow's Skull with Calico Roses (The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois). In 1937, she explored other compositions, and in works such as From the Faraway Nearby (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York), she introduced the landscape into her skull paintings. In it, she depicts the skull as a floating image above the pink desert landscape with a backdrop of a pink and blue sky. The juxtaposition is suggestive of the surreal, while retaining her distinctively crisp delineation of form.
Lloyd Goodrich's discussion of From the Faraway Nearby relates closely to her other bone paintings and drawings: "Each of the individual elements is painted with precise, exquisite realism, but their relations to one another have little to do with ordinary reality. The imagery in this and similar works is enigmatic; it might symbolize nature's eternal cycle of life and death, of mortality and new life, recurring endlessly in the space and light and impersonal beauty of the desert. These skull paintings continue the visionary strain in her earliest works, but in a far different language." (Georgia O'Keeffe, p. 24)
By the early 1940s, O'Keeffe began painting pelvic bones, using them to frame landscape and sky. O'Keeffe explained that she was "most interested in the holes in the bones--what I saw through them-particularly the blue from holding them in the sun against the sky." (as quoted in C.C. Eldredge, Georgia O'Keeffe, New York, 1991, p. 136) O'Keeffe claimed the pelvis paintings were symbols of the desert; however others believe them to represent death and isolation. O'Keeffe hinted at the symbolic meaning of these works, "'They were most wonderful against the Blue--that Blue that will always be there as it is now after all man's destruction is finished.' The pelvic series was initiated in 1943, in the bleak nadir of World War II, when 'man's destruction' reached unprecedented levels. From her earliest watercolors, the blue-Kandinsky's spiritual hue--had held interest for her, many years later, the enduring blue still held promise for the pacifist O'Keeffe, and her series of sockets against the sky could be read as paean for peace." (Georgia O'Keeffe, p. 140)
Executed in 1945, Goat's Horns with Blue directly relates to O'Keeffe's abstracted pelvis paintings. Just as O'Keeffe used pelvises to frame the sky in previous works, in Goat's Horns with Blue the artist uses the center of the unfurled horn. The goat's eye echoes the shape of the horn, becoming a smaller version framing the darkness within the socket. This image has become more abstract from her earlier skull works, as well as more sophisticated in sensitivity and subtlety.
For Goat's Horns with Blue, O'Keeffe chose the versatile medium of pastels, combining layered pigments and expressive lines to capture the starkness of the skull and horns. Pastel, which had been used to great effect by American Impressionists. It was lauded for its accessibility, allowing for "spontaneity and freedom of method...directness and simplicity...brilliancy and delicate variety." (American Pastels in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1989, p. 21) For O'Keeffe in particular, "pastel afforded [her] a medium for her most unabashedly beautiful works of art. Exploiting pastel's broad range of hue and value, she was able to combine the graceful tonal imagery she had developed in charcoal with the intense abstract color she had explored captivating surface texture." (J. Walsh, "The Language of O'Keeffe's Materials: Charcoal, Watercolor, Pastel," O'Keeffe on Paper, New York, 2000, p. 68) The velvety quality of pastel lent a greater tactility to her work, and the availability of wide ranges of color made it highly expressive. She relied on subtle gradations in color to define form and create sculptural depth.
"The form of the pelvis, severe and stark, is at once abstract and realistic. The ringing, singing shapes of these bones are clean, rounded and smooth. They combine echoes of both birth and infinity; the glittering sky beyond the bones holds a breathtaking clarity, deep and endless. The palette in the first pictures is austerely limited to blue and white, and the shape to one smooth and simple curve. The series contains a purity and lucidity unrivaled in O'Keeffe's work." (R. Robinson, Georgia O'Keeffe: A Life, New York, 1989, p. 460)
When she first came to New Mexico in 1929, O'Keeffe became passionate about the natural objects she found in the desert and began a collection of stones and bones worn by wind and water. They became her "symbols" of the desert. In 1939, when O'Keeffe exhibited the first of these bone paintings at Alfred Stieglitz's gallery, An American Place, she wrote in a statement published in the exhibition catalogue how the bones came to represent the desert for her: "To me they are as beautiful as anything I know. To me they are strangely more living than the animals walking around...The bones seem to cut sharply to the center of something that is keenly on the desert even tho' it is vast and empty and untouchable--and knows no kindness with all its beauty." (as quoted in L. Goodrich, Georgia O'Keeffe, New York, 1970, p. 23)
O'Keeffe's first bone paintings are among some of her most famous images, including Cow's Skull: Red, White and Blue (1931, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York), in which she isolates a cow's skull against red, white and blue to create a simple and powerful composition, while branding her composition as a wholly American one. The same year, O'Keeffe began incorporating her signature flowers into her skull compositions, resulting in dramatic works such as Cow's Skull with Calico Roses (The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois). In 1937, she explored other compositions, and in works such as From the Faraway Nearby (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York), she introduced the landscape into her skull paintings. In it, she depicts the skull as a floating image above the pink desert landscape with a backdrop of a pink and blue sky. The juxtaposition is suggestive of the surreal, while retaining her distinctively crisp delineation of form.
Lloyd Goodrich's discussion of From the Faraway Nearby relates closely to her other bone paintings and drawings: "Each of the individual elements is painted with precise, exquisite realism, but their relations to one another have little to do with ordinary reality. The imagery in this and similar works is enigmatic; it might symbolize nature's eternal cycle of life and death, of mortality and new life, recurring endlessly in the space and light and impersonal beauty of the desert. These skull paintings continue the visionary strain in her earliest works, but in a far different language." (Georgia O'Keeffe, p. 24)
By the early 1940s, O'Keeffe began painting pelvic bones, using them to frame landscape and sky. O'Keeffe explained that she was "most interested in the holes in the bones--what I saw through them-particularly the blue from holding them in the sun against the sky." (as quoted in C.C. Eldredge, Georgia O'Keeffe, New York, 1991, p. 136) O'Keeffe claimed the pelvis paintings were symbols of the desert; however others believe them to represent death and isolation. O'Keeffe hinted at the symbolic meaning of these works, "'They were most wonderful against the Blue--that Blue that will always be there as it is now after all man's destruction is finished.' The pelvic series was initiated in 1943, in the bleak nadir of World War II, when 'man's destruction' reached unprecedented levels. From her earliest watercolors, the blue-Kandinsky's spiritual hue--had held interest for her, many years later, the enduring blue still held promise for the pacifist O'Keeffe, and her series of sockets against the sky could be read as paean for peace." (Georgia O'Keeffe, p. 140)
Executed in 1945, Goat's Horns with Blue directly relates to O'Keeffe's abstracted pelvis paintings. Just as O'Keeffe used pelvises to frame the sky in previous works, in Goat's Horns with Blue the artist uses the center of the unfurled horn. The goat's eye echoes the shape of the horn, becoming a smaller version framing the darkness within the socket. This image has become more abstract from her earlier skull works, as well as more sophisticated in sensitivity and subtlety.
For Goat's Horns with Blue, O'Keeffe chose the versatile medium of pastels, combining layered pigments and expressive lines to capture the starkness of the skull and horns. Pastel, which had been used to great effect by American Impressionists. It was lauded for its accessibility, allowing for "spontaneity and freedom of method...directness and simplicity...brilliancy and delicate variety." (American Pastels in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1989, p. 21) For O'Keeffe in particular, "pastel afforded [her] a medium for her most unabashedly beautiful works of art. Exploiting pastel's broad range of hue and value, she was able to combine the graceful tonal imagery she had developed in charcoal with the intense abstract color she had explored captivating surface texture." (J. Walsh, "The Language of O'Keeffe's Materials: Charcoal, Watercolor, Pastel," O'Keeffe on Paper, New York, 2000, p. 68) The velvety quality of pastel lent a greater tactility to her work, and the availability of wide ranges of color made it highly expressive. She relied on subtle gradations in color to define form and create sculptural depth.
"The form of the pelvis, severe and stark, is at once abstract and realistic. The ringing, singing shapes of these bones are clean, rounded and smooth. They combine echoes of both birth and infinity; the glittering sky beyond the bones holds a breathtaking clarity, deep and endless. The palette in the first pictures is austerely limited to blue and white, and the shape to one smooth and simple curve. The series contains a purity and lucidity unrivaled in O'Keeffe's work." (R. Robinson, Georgia O'Keeffe: A Life, New York, 1989, p. 460)