Ghost Ranch became Georgia O'Keeffe's second home and inspired many paintings.
The ranch is a dramatic landscape in northern New Mexico, near Abiquiú. O'Keeffe first visited the area in 1934 and returned repeatedly. Its cliffs, arroyos, wide skies, and changing light became recurring subjects in her work. She later maintained a house there, making Ghost Ranch distinct from her Abiquiú home.
The setting is sometimes identified simply as “the red hills,” but the broader place is Ghost Ranch. O'Keeffe often isolated parts of the landscape rather than presenting a conventional panoramic view, which is one reason her paintings can look more abstract than documentary.
The D.H. Lawrence Ranch is also a New Mexico cultural site, but it is associated with the writer D. H. Lawrence, not O'Keeffe's main landscape residence. Ghost Ranch is the specific ranch linked to her repeated visits and paintings.