Ghost Ranch became closely associated with Georgia O'Keeffe after she began visiting it in 1934.
Ghost Ranch is a dramatic area near Abiquiu, New Mexico, known for colorful cliffs, broad skies, and distinctive geological formations. O'Keeffe first visited the area in 1934 and returned repeatedly, finding subjects for paintings and drawings in its bones, hills, trees, and surrounding terrain.
She rented a house at Ghost Ranch for many years before acquiring a home in the nearby village of Abiquiu. The two places are related but not identical: Ghost Ranch is a large landscape property, while Abiquiu is the community where O'Keeffe later owned and restored a house.
O'Keeffe's New Mexico work helped shape popular ideas about her art, but her subjects also included flowers, city views, abstraction, and objects collected from nature. Ghost Ranch was therefore a major setting in her career, not the sole source of her artistic identity.