New Mexico became Georgia O'Keeffe's main artistic setting after her first visit in 1917.
O'Keeffe first visited New Mexico in 1917 and returned repeatedly during the 1920s and 1930s. The state’s mountains, deserts, adobe buildings, bones, roads, and intense light became central subjects in her work. She often explored the landscape alone and translated particular places into simplified, highly recognizable compositions.
She moved permanently to New Mexico in 1949, three years after Alfred Stieglitz died. Her homes and studios there supported a sustained period of painting and drawing, and the state became inseparable from her public image.
New Mexico is sometimes confused with Arizona or with the broader American Southwest. O'Keeffe did paint subjects from other places, including New York and Lake George, but New Mexico provided the most enduring landscape context for her later career. The answer refers to the state, not to a particular village, ranch, or museum.