New Mexico became Georgia O'Keeffe's lasting landscape subject after her first visit in 1917.
O'Keeffe first visited New Mexico in 1917, when she traveled to Santa Fe and Taos. She returned regularly from 1929 onward and found imagery that became central to her mature work: adobe buildings, desert horizons, churches, cliffs, bones, flowers, and the vivid colors of the high desert.
She divided her time between New York and New Mexico for many years before moving permanently to the Southwest. The stark architecture and open spaces offered an alternative to the crowded urban subjects associated with her earlier paintings.
Two places are especially linked with her New Mexico career: Ghost Ranch, north of Abiquiú, and Abiquiú itself. O'Keeffe later said the landscape around Ghost Ranch was one of the most beautiful places she had ever known. New Mexico is sometimes called the subject of her work, but it was also her home and a source of daily observation.