Georgia O'Keeffe’s repeatedly painted New Mexico mountain was Cerro Pedernal.
Cerro Pedernal is a flat-topped mountain near Abiquiú in northern New Mexico. O'Keeffe viewed it from her home and studio and painted its distinctive profile many times. The mountain’s isolated shape and changing colors made it an ideal subject for her practice of returning to a form and presenting it from different angles and degrees of abstraction.
O'Keeffe famously referred to Cerro Pedernal as her private mountain, suggesting a personal bond with the landmark. It appears in works that simplify the landscape into strong bands, planes, and silhouettes rather than offering a conventional topographical record.
The mountain also has a lasting connection to her life: after her death in 1986, her ashes were scattered from its summit. Cerro Pedernal is therefore both a recurring artistic motif and a place associated with her final wishes.