Georgia O’Keeffe’s Ranchos Church, New Mexico depicts the San Francisco de Asís Mission Church at Ranchos de Taos.
The historic church stands in Ranchos de Taos, New Mexico, and is formally known as the San Francisco de Asís Mission Church. O’Keeffe painted and drew the building several times, focusing on its massive adobe forms and the changing effects of light.
Her interest in the church reflects her broader response to New Mexican architecture. Adobe structures, walls, doors, and courtyards offered her strong geometric shapes that she could simplify and reorganize in modernist compositions.
Ranchos de Taos is different from Ghost Ranch and Abiquiú, two other New Mexico places strongly associated with O’Keeffe. The church is near Taos, while Ghost Ranch lies farther north and became one of O’Keeffe’s major landscape subjects.