Georgia O'Keeffe permanently moved to New Mexico in 1949.
O'Keeffe first visited New Mexico in 1929 and returned there for many summers during the 1930s and 1940s. The region became a central source of imagery, including desert landscapes, adobe buildings, animal bones, and the distinctive forms of the landscape around Ghost Ranch and Abiquiú.
After Alfred Stieglitz died in 1946, O'Keeffe moved permanently from New York to New Mexico in 1949. The move did not begin her connection with the state; it made a long-standing seasonal relationship her year-round home. Her New Mexico paintings are often called Southwestern art, but O'Keeffe resisted being reduced to a regional label. She continued to explore abstraction and close-up natural forms alongside landscape.