Ram’s Head, White Hollyhock Hills is an oil on canvas painting by Georgia O’Keeffe done in 1935.
O’Keeffe is an American artist, she was best known for painting large flowers, bones, and New Mexico landscapes. Her paintings at first were not looked upon as good, but today she is acknowledged as the mother of American modernism.
In her painting Ram’s Head, White Hollyhock Hills the viewer can clearly see what O’Keeffe saw while living in New Mexico. The ram’s head is painted in the center and to the left of the head a little bit below the horn a white flower is painted. Both the ram head and the flower are floating in the middle of the canvas. The background is a beautiful warm toned, New Mexico landscape. There are many hills in the distance framing the foreground with large clouds roaming above with dark blue tones showing that it’s about to rain. O’Keeffe’s painting palette kept to earthy tones and bright hues for her flowers.
Many people argued that her paintings represented women’s genitalia. That was the main reason most of her paintings did not succeed as they should have at the time. O’Keeffe constantly denied that it was true, and stood by her statement of that not being true. Her best known work was painted during her stay in New Mexico, where she would walk around the landscape collecting rocks, bones and flowers that she would later paint. Her home is now a museum open to the public to experience the environment she had while creating.
The way she painted the landscapes and colors she used gives the viewer nearly the same feeling as if they were really there!
