Abiquiú became Georgia O'Keeffe's permanent New Mexico home in 1949. She moved there after years of spending part of each year in the state and working among its distinctive desert landscapes.
O'Keeffe first visited New Mexico in 1917 and returned regularly from the 1920s onward. The region offered subjects very different from New York and Lake George, including adobe buildings, dry hills, bones, churches, and immense skies. These became central elements of her mature visual language.
Her Abiquiú house and studio were built around a historic adobe compound. The property included a famous courtyard wall and door that O'Keeffe painted repeatedly. She valued the house as both a place to live and a working environment, and it is now preserved as a historic site.
Abiquiú is often confused with Santa Fe because O'Keeffe spent time in both places and the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum is in Santa Fe. However, Abiquiú was her home, while Santa Fe became the location of the museum founded after her death.