What was Georgia O’Keeffe’s first major New Mexico painting series based on?

Georgia O’Keeffe’s first major New Mexico painting series was based on the Ranchos de Taos church.

The building is the San Francisco de Asís Mission Church in Ranchos de Taos, a historic adobe church in northern New Mexico. O’Keeffe painted it during her early visits to the state, producing several views that emphasize its massive earthen forms, sculptural buttresses, and changing light.

Her best-known version is often identified as “Ranchos de Taos Church,” painted around 1930. O’Keeffe did not simply record the church as an architectural document. She cropped and simplified it, turning the adobe structure into an almost abstract arrangement of curves, planes, and shadows.

The church remains an active historic site and is also known as San Francisco de Asís Mission Church. Its appearance in O’Keeffe’s work helped establish adobe architecture as one of the defining subjects of her New Mexico period.