Georgia O'Keeffe first visited New Mexico in 1929. The trip began a lifelong artistic relationship with the region, whose mountains, desert, architecture, bones, and plants became recurring subjects in her paintings.
O'Keeffe traveled to New Mexico during a period when she was already established in New York and widely known for enlarged flower paintings and abstract forms. She typically spent part of the year there and returned repeatedly, eventually making the state her permanent home after Alfred Stieglitz died in 1946.
Her New Mexico paintings include adobe buildings, crosses, animal bones, and distinctive geological formations. She often transformed observed objects through close cropping, simplified shapes, and strong color rather than treating them as straightforward documentary views.
The year 1929 is important because it marks her first visit, not the date when she permanently relocated. She continued living and working in New York for many years afterward. Her New Mexico residence and studio near Abiquiu became central to her later life and work.