New Mexico became the central landscape setting of Georgia O'Keeffe's later work.
O'Keeffe first visited New Mexico in 1917 and returned repeatedly from 1929 onward. She was drawn to its desert light, mountains, adobe buildings, crosses, bones, and broad open spaces. These subjects became some of the most recognizable elements of her mature style.
She lived and worked at Ghost Ranch and later made Abiquiú her principal home. The stark forms and intense colors of northern New Mexico appeared in paintings such as Ram's Head, White Hollyhock-Hills and Red, and numerous views of the area around her houses.
O'Keeffe had earlier painted flowers and New York architecture, so New Mexico did not replace her previous subjects immediately. Instead, the region expanded her visual vocabulary. Her New Mexico paintings also helped establish the modern American image of the Southwest, although her interpretations were personal rather than conventional travel illustrations.