New Mexico became Georgia O’Keeffe’s lifelong artistic home after she moved there permanently in 1949.
O’Keeffe first visited New Mexico in 1917 and returned repeatedly during the 1920s and 1930s. The state’s cliffs, desert, bones, adobe buildings, and intense light became central subjects in her work. She eventually divided her time between New York and New Mexico before settling there.
Her New Mexico imagery includes the landscapes around Ghost Ranch and Abiquiú. Rather than treating the region as a temporary travel subject, O’Keeffe made its forms part of her visual vocabulary for decades.
People sometimes associate her primarily with New York because of her relationship with photographer and gallery owner Alfred Stieglitz. New Mexico, however, became the place most closely identified with her mature life and art. She died in Santa Fe in 1986.