Ghost Ranch inspired Georgia O'Keeffe's paintings of cliffs, including Red Hills with Flowers.
Ghost Ranch is a dramatic landscape near Abiquiú in northern New Mexico. O'Keeffe first visited the area in the 1930s and repeatedly painted its cliffs, mesas, bones, roads, and changing light. The red and ochre formations became among the most recognizable settings in her work.
She later maintained a house at Ghost Ranch, while her principal home and studio was in Abiquiú. The two places are close enough to be connected in biographies but are not the same property. This distinction matters because O'Keeffe drew subjects from both locations.
Ghost Ranch was originally known as Piedra Lumbre and became associated with ranching and later with the Presbyterian Church's education and retreat programs. O'Keeffe's paintings helped make the area's severe forms widely recognizable in American art, although her compositions were highly selective rather than literal landscape maps.