New Mexico became Georgia O'Keeffe's best-known artistic setting from the 1920s onward.
O'Keeffe first visited New Mexico in 1917, but she began spending part of almost every year there in 1929. The region's cliffs, bones, adobe buildings, churches, and broad skies became recurring subjects in her paintings.
She was especially associated with Ghost Ranch and Abiquiú. The stark landscape gave her a visual vocabulary very different from the skyscrapers and flowers of her New York work. She later made New Mexico her permanent home.
O'Keeffe's connection with the state was not simply a tourism story. She repeatedly walked, collected objects, and returned to particular sites, transforming them through close observation and simplified forms. Although deserts also appear in Arizona, Utah, and other states, New Mexico is the state most specifically linked with her mature artistic identity.