Ghost Ranch became Georgia O'Keeffe's New Mexico home and recurring subject after 1949.
O'Keeffe first visited the area in the 1930s and repeatedly painted its cliffs, hills, bones, and broad desert spaces. In 1949, after the death of her husband, photographer and gallery owner Alfred Stieglitz, she moved permanently from New York to New Mexico. Ghost Ranch, near Abiquiú, became one of the central landscapes of her mature work.
The ranch is associated with dramatic red-rock formations and was operated for many years as a retreat and education center by the Presbyterian Church. O'Keeffe also maintained a home in the nearby village of Abiquiú, a location often confused with Ghost Ranch itself.
Works connected with the area include paintings of the Pedernal, a flat-topped mountain that she famously treated as a personal visual emblem.