Georgia O'Keeffe began spending part of each year in New Mexico in 1929.
O'Keeffe first visited New Mexico in 1917, but 1929 marks the beginning of her regular seasonal trips there. She traveled west with her friend Rebecca Strand and was captivated by the region's adobe architecture, desert light, bones, mountains, and expansive skies.
During these annual visits, O'Keeffe developed subjects that became central to her mature work. She painted churches, ranch buildings, hills, animal bones, and views around Taos, Abiquiú, and Ghost Ranch. New Mexico gradually became more than a source of motifs: it became the landscape in which she wanted to live and work.
Stieglitz remained in New York, so the trips also created a recurring separation in their marriage. O'Keeffe eventually moved permanently to New Mexico after Stieglitz's death in 1946. The year 1929 should not be confused with her first New Mexico visit in 1917 or her acquisition of the Abiquiú house in 1945.