Cerro Pedernal was the New Mexico mountain Georgia O'Keeffe repeatedly painted from different viewpoints. The flat-topped peak lies east of Abiquiu and became one of the most recognizable landscape forms in her work.
O'Keeffe painted Pedernal in changing conditions and from varying distances, reducing it to a strong horizontal shape above the surrounding land. She was interested not only in accurate geographic depiction but also in how a familiar form could be transformed through color, scale, and composition.
The mountain became personally meaningful to her. O'Keeffe once wrote that it was her private mountain and that she wanted to paint it until it became part of her. Its repeated appearance therefore reflects both observation and attachment.
Cerro Pedernal is sometimes incorrectly identified as a mountain in Ghost Ranch itself. It is associated with the Abiquiu area and can be seen from parts of the landscape O'Keeffe inhabited. The distinctive flat summit helps distinguish it from the surrounding Sangre de Cristo terrain.