New Mexico became Georgia O'Keeffe's chief source of landscapes and symbols.
O'Keeffe first visited New Mexico in 1917 and returned regularly during the 1920s. She was drawn to the state's stark light, adobe buildings, desert terrain, mountains, and animal bones. These subjects became central to her mature visual language.
She moved permanently to New Mexico in 1949, three years after Alfred Stieglitz's death. She lived and worked at Abiquiú and Ghost Ranch, while also maintaining a home in the village of Abiquiú. Paintings of the region include churches, cliffs, roads, hills, and bones.
New Mexico is sometimes treated merely as a late-career setting, but it shaped O'Keeffe's work for more than half a century. Her New Mexico images are not straightforward travel snapshots; she simplified and enlarged forms to create highly personal compositions.