New Mexico became Georgia O'Keeffe's best-known artistic subject after her first visit there in 1917. She returned repeatedly, especially from the late 1920s onward, and the state's stark landscapes, adobe buildings, bones, and distant horizons became central to her work.
O'Keeffe spent part of nearly every year in New Mexico beginning in 1929. She often traveled alone through the region, collecting objects and looking for distinctive formations to paint. Her subjects included the walls and doors of adobe buildings, the cliffs around Ghost Ranch, and the area near Abiquiu.
New Mexico was more than a scenic backdrop for O'Keeffe. She treated its forms as opportunities for close observation and simplification. Her paintings of the state helped establish a recognizable modern American vision of the Southwest, although the region's Indigenous and Hispanic histories are broader than the selective imagery she chose.