Georgia O'KeeffeAmerican, 1887–1986Mule Skull with Turkey Feather
Can I see it?
Not on view at present
Where is “Mule Skull with Turkey Feather” now? Collection: Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago. Not on view at present. Checked September 29, 2026.
Chicago, United States
It belongs to the collection, but is not on display at present.
- Checked
- In this state since
- Source
- The museum
About the work
Born in Wisconsin, Georgia O’Keeffe divided her time between New York and New Mexico in the years 1929–49. Her first retrospective was mounted by the Art Institute of Chicago in 1943. An influential member of the circle of early modernists that formed around her husband, photographer and dealer Alfred Stieglitz, she was particularly recognized for her synthesis of abstraction and representation, as well as for her superb technical skill. Frequently taking inspiration from natural forms of the Southwest, O’Keeffe rendered two distinct objects—a skull and a feather—in this strong, yet subtle drawing, paying particular attention to the formal relationships between
the two.
Art Institute of ChicagoCC BY 4.0
Details
- Accession number
- 1992.178
In the catalog
Sources
- Art Institute of Chicago
- Image: Art Institute of Chicago — © the artist or rights holder
In the life of Georgia O'Keeffe
The whole life1929–1983 · Workplace
New Mexico
1932–1934
Nervous breakdown and two months in hospital
A nervous breakdown, largely brought on by Stieglitz’s affair with Dorothy Norman, kept O’Keeffe from working from late 1932, and in 1933 she spent two months in hospital; in 1933 and 1934 she recuperated in Bermuda. She began painting again in January 1934.
August 1934
Moves to Ghost Ranch
From August 1934 she lived at Ghost Ranch, north of Abiquiú; the varicoloured cliffs around the ranch inspired some of her most famous landscapes. In 1940 she moved into a house on the ranch property.
1937
Stieglitz gives up photography
When Stieglitz retired from photography in 1937 he had made more than 350 portraits of O’Keeffe and more than 200 nude photographs of her.
1938
Advertising commission from the Hawaiian Pineapple Company
The agency N. W. Ayer & Son asked her for two paintings for the Hawaiian Pineapple Company (now Dole) to use in advertising. The offer came when she was 51 and her career seemed to be stalling: critics found her New Mexico focus limited and called her desert images a kind of mass production.
