Ghost Ranch supplied Georgia O'Keeffe with the cliffs seen in many paintings.
Ghost Ranch is a retreat and landscape area near Abiquiú in northern New Mexico. O'Keeffe first visited the region in 1934 and later rented a house there for part of the year. The area's multicolored cliffs, mesas, and open spaces became recurring subjects in her work.
She often painted the same formations from different viewpoints and in different conditions of light. One particularly important landmark was the red-and-yellow cliff known as Pedernal, which appears in many paintings. O'Keeffe described the mountain as a private symbol and famously said that God told her she could have it if she painted it often enough.
Ghost Ranch is sometimes confused with Abiquiú because both locations were central to her New Mexico life. Abiquiú was the town where she owned and restored a home; Ghost Ranch was the separate landscape retreat that provided many of her dramatic cliff views.