Red Hills and Bones

A whitened bone rests in the near ground, set against hills of red and brown that roll back toward a sky washed in warm earthy color. The composition pairs that stark remnant with the soft, undulating desert terrain behind it, creating a contrast between hard form and open space. This is an oil painting completed in 1941, now held at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, where it came into the collection through the Alfred Stieglitz holdings. The artist, Georgia O'Keeffe (1887–1986), was American. Looking closely, the warm tones of the hills shift subtly from rust to deeper brown, giving the land a sense of quiet movement even as the bone in front stays still and bleached white under the open sky.