Pedernal was Georgia O'Keeffe's recurring New Mexico mountain subject.
Cerro Pedernal, commonly called the Pedernal, is a flat-topped mountain in northern New Mexico. O'Keeffe could see it from her home and studio near Abiquiú, and she painted it repeatedly in simplified, strongly colored compositions.
The mountain became more than a landscape motif. O'Keeffe once described it as her private mountain and famously said that God had told her, if she painted it enough, she could have it. This remark captures her habit of transforming observed places into personal visual symbols.
The Pedernal is sometimes confused with the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, a larger mountain range that also appears in New Mexico landscapes. O'Keeffe's paintings do not document the mountain topographically; instead, they reduce its shape, color, and position into carefully balanced compositions.