Georgia O'Keeffe first visited New Mexico in 1929.
O'Keeffe traveled to New Mexico during the summer of 1929, beginning a long relationship with the state’s landscapes, architecture, and objects. She was especially drawn to the stark forms of cliffs, adobe buildings, crosses, bones, and desert plants. These subjects became central to her mature work.
After her first visit, O'Keeffe returned regularly and spent increasing amounts of time in New Mexico. She later lived at homes in Abiquiú and Ghost Ranch, eventually making New Mexico her permanent base. Her paintings from the region helped shape popular ideas about Southwestern modernism.
The year is sometimes confused with 1936, when O'Keeffe painted the well-known work Summer Days, or with 1949, when she settled permanently in New Mexico. Neither marks her first visit. Her 1929 trip was the starting point of the sustained artistic engagement that transformed the direction of her career.