Ghost Ranch was the New Mexico location where Georgia O'Keeffe maintained a second home and found many landscape subjects. The dramatic area near Abiquiú became one of the defining settings of her later work.
O'Keeffe began spending time at Ghost Ranch during her New Mexico years and was drawn to its cliffs, mesas, bones, and broad desert views. She rented a house there before establishing her permanent home at Abiquiú. The landscape's intense color and simplified forms suited her approach to modernist composition.
Ghost Ranch and Abiquiú are related but not identical places. Ghost Ranch is a large retreat and landscape area, while Abiquiú is the village where O'Keeffe owned and restored her principal house and studio. Paintings inspired by both locations contribute to the common image of O'Keeffe as the great visual interpreter of northern New Mexico.