Ghost Ranch, near Abiquiú in northern New Mexico, became one of Georgia O'Keeffe's most important landscape subjects. She first visited the area in the 1930s and later maintained a home there.
The ranch's dramatic cliffs, mesas and changing light inspired paintings such as Red Hills and works featuring the Pedernal mountain. O'Keeffe famously said that the Pedernal was her private mountain and that she could paint it repeatedly. Ghost Ranch helped define the spare, intensely colored landscapes associated with her Southwestern period.
Ghost Ranch is sometimes confused with O'Keeffe's separate Abiquiú home, which she acquired later and restored. Both places are in New Mexico, but Ghost Ranch is the larger retreat and landscape setting. Today it is an education and retreat center as well as a destination connected with O'Keeffe's artistic legacy.