New Mexico became Georgia O'Keeffe's main artistic home after 1949. She had first visited the state in 1917 and returned almost every summer from 1929 through the 1940s, finding subjects in its cliffs, adobe buildings, desert plants, and animal bones.
After Alfred Stieglitz died in 1946, O'Keeffe moved permanently from New York to New Mexico in 1949. She spent much of her later life working in the state, especially around Abiquiú and Ghost Ranch. The region's intense light and distinctive geology became central to her mature paintings.
O'Keeffe's New Mexico subjects included the Cerro Pedernal, the Rio Grande, churches, doors, hills, and bones collected during drives through the landscape. Her paintings transformed these objects rather than simply recording them as conventional scenery.
New Mexico is sometimes called the Land of Enchantment, but the important point for O'Keeffe is its role as a long-term source of imagery and independence. Her New York skyscraper paintings belong to an earlier phase, while her later reputation is strongly tied to the Southwest.