Georgia O’Keeffe moved permanently to New Mexico in 1949.
She first visited New Mexico in 1929, traveling there regularly during summers while maintaining a base in New York. The state’s cliffs, adobe buildings, bones, and expansive skies became some of the defining subjects of her mature work. She often explored the region by car and made paintings from places around Abiquiú and Ghost Ranch.
After Alfred Stieglitz died in 1946, O’Keeffe began spending more time in New Mexico. She moved there permanently in 1949, settling first at Ghost Ranch and later living at a historic adobe house in Abiquiú. The shift made the Southwest the center of her daily life and artistic practice.
The date is sometimes confused with 1929, the year of her first visit, or with 1939, when she began renting the Abiquiú house that she later purchased. These dates describe important stages of her relationship with New Mexico, but only 1949 marks the permanent move.