Photo By Gail

From 1943 to 1947, Georgia O’Keeffe painted a series that explored the intricate shapes and surfaces of animal bones. The bones were pictured in their entirety or in magnified detail. In this abstract variation, Pelvis II (1944) O’Keeffe draws attention to the blue sky seen through the empty socks. The work demonstrates her ability to present what the writer Jean Toomer described as “the universe through the portal of a bone.”

Photographed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan.