Georgia O'Keeffe made her best-known desert paintings and lived permanently in New Mexico after 1949.
O'Keeffe first visited New Mexico in 1929 and returned repeatedly during the following decades. She was drawn to the state’s stark mountains, adobe architecture, desert plants, animal bones, and broad skies. These subjects became central to the visual identity associated with her mature work.
She lived and worked in Abiquiú and Ghost Ranch. The area provided a very different environment from New York City, where she had spent much of her earlier career. Her paintings of the region were not simply travel records; they transformed local forms into highly simplified, modern compositions.
After Alfred Stieglitz died in 1946, O'Keeffe moved permanently to New Mexico in 1949. She remained there for the rest of her life, although she traveled and continued working into old age.