Georgia O'Keeffe made New Mexico famous in her art through paintings of its landscapes, bones, flowers, and architecture.
She first visited New Mexico in 1917 and returned repeatedly during the 1920s and 1930s. The region's clear light, desert terrain, cliffs, churches, and abandoned structures became central subjects in her work. She eventually moved there permanently in 1949, after Alfred Stieglitz's death.
O'Keeffe maintained homes at Ghost Ranch and Abiquiú. She often explored the surrounding landscape herself, collecting animal bones and painting distinctive geological formations. Places such as the Pedernal and the Black Place became recurring visual subjects.
New Mexico was not her birthplace: she was born in Wisconsin and also lived and worked in New York and Texas. Her association with New Mexico reflects the sustained importance of the region to her mature career, not the location of her childhood.