Georgia O’Keeffe first visited New Mexico in 1917.
She traveled to New Mexico in the summer of 1917 while visiting her friend and fellow artist Anita Pollitzer. The trip introduced her to the region’s intense light, arid landscapes, adobe buildings, bones, and religious sites, all of which later became recurring subjects.
O’Keeffe returned repeatedly during the 1920s and eventually made the Southwest central to her life and work. She moved permanently to New Mexico in 1949, three years after Alfred Stieglitz died. Her homes and studios at Abiquiú and Ghost Ranch became important working environments.
The year 1917 is sometimes confused with 1929, when she began making regular extended trips to New Mexico, or with 1949, when she settled there permanently. Those are different milestones. Her first visit came much earlier and began a relationship with the landscape that lasted for the rest of her career.