Ghost Ranch became strongly associated with Georgia O'Keeffe's New Mexico landscapes.
The ranch lies near Abiquiú in northern New Mexico, amid cliffs, mesas, and vivid geological formations. O'Keeffe began visiting the area in the 1930s and repeatedly painted its distinctive scenery, including the dramatic cliffs known as the Cerro Pedernal region.
She rented a house at Ghost Ranch and used the surrounding landscape as a sustained source of subjects. Her paintings transformed local rock formations, roads, bones, and distant horizons into simplified, highly recognizable compositions.
Ghost Ranch and Abiquiú are related but not interchangeable. Ghost Ranch was a rural retreat north of Abiquiú, while Abiquiú was the village where O'Keeffe later owned and lived in a historic house. Both places appear frequently in accounts of her New Mexico years.