New Mexico became Georgia O'Keeffe's main source of desert landscapes.
She first visited the state in 1929, traveling south from New York with the photographer Paul Strand. The region’s open spaces, adobe buildings, bones, flowers, cliffs, and intense light became recurring subjects in her work.
O'Keeffe returned repeatedly and eventually made New Mexico her permanent home. She lived at Ghost Ranch and later maintained a house in Abiquiú. Paintings such as “Black Place” and “Red Hills and Bones” reflect her close observation of the state’s terrain.
Her New Mexico paintings are not simply travel records. O'Keeffe transformed particular places into simplified, highly composed forms. The state is therefore both a geographic setting and a defining visual language in her career.