New Mexico became Georgia O'Keeffe's main source of inspiration after her first visit there in 1929.
She was drawn to the state's dramatic skies, mountains, adobe buildings, churches, desert plants, and animal bones. O'Keeffe returned repeatedly and eventually made New Mexico her permanent home after Alfred Stieglitz died in 1946.
Her work from the region includes paintings of the landscape around Abiquiú and Ghost Ranch. She also painted the doors and walls of adobe structures, transforming local architectural details into monumental compositions.
New Mexico did not replace every other subject in her art. She continued to make flower paintings and later traveled widely, but the state became inseparable from her public identity. O'Keeffe's New Mexico paintings helped define how modern American art could engage with a distinctly regional landscape.