New Mexico supplied the landscapes for many of Georgia O'Keeffe's best-known paintings.
O'Keeffe first visited New Mexico in 1929 and returned repeatedly before moving there permanently after Alfred Stieglitz died in 1946. The state's stark terrain, adobe architecture, bones, mountains, and expansive skies became recurring subjects in her work.
She painted locations around Taos, Abiquiú, Ghost Ranch, and the Chama River Valley. Rather than treating the landscape as a conventional scenic backdrop, she often isolated a single form or enlarged a small detail until it became an abstract-looking composition.
New Mexico was not the only place that influenced O'Keeffe. She also made important paintings in New York and at Lake George, and she worked in Hawaii in 1939. Nevertheless, New Mexico is the region most strongly associated with her mature career and public identity.