Georgia O’Keeffe in Abiquiu
Abiquiu and Ghost Ranch: the Backdrops for Georgia O’Keeffe’s Celebrated New Mexico Landscapes.
Though Georgia O’Keeffe had heard about Ghost Ranch during her first trip to the area in 1929, it wasn’t until the summer of 1934 that she was able to actually find it. By chance, while buying supplies on a shopping trip she spotted a truck in the parking lot with the initials “GR” painted on its sides. She waited for the driver to return to the truck and asked him if he worked at Ghost Ranch. He did, and with the detailed directions provided by the ranch hand, O’Keeffe set out on a mission to find the ranch that had eluded her on previous trips.
Ghost Ranch owner, Arther Pack, put O’Keeffe up in the oldest building on the ranch known as Ghost House — so named for the ghostly woman who reportedly haunted the house. O’Keeffe didn’t see any ghosts that first night there, but the place haunted her nonetheless. She stayed at Ghost Ranch for the rest of the summer and began exploring her surroundings in earnest.
The hills around Ghost Ranch particularly fascinated her. She enjoyed watching the way the sun and the clouds would alter the colors of the landforms depending on the time of day and strove to capture the contours, colors, and textures of the land in her paintings.
She spent much of her time at Ghost Ranch working long hours in solitude. She made frequent excursions to remote sites that she found particularly compelling, such as the nearly monochromatic hills of an area she dubbed the Black Place, to the striking flat-top mesa called Perdernal Mountain. Exploring the area by foot or car every day, O’Keeffe would collect an array of natural artifacts for subject matter — from stark weathered branches to dry bleached animal bones she found scattered across the desert.
In 1940, Pack agreed to sell O’Keeffe a simple adobe residence on Ghost Ranch called Rancho de los Burros. Its secluded location was the perfect base for exploring sources of inspiration for her art. But life at Rancho de los Burros wasn’t easy. The isolated house had no electricity, no phone, and was an 80-mile drive from nearest place for groceries.
In 1945, O’Keeffe bought a second house in Abiquiu to make her life a bit easier. (This is the home that Abiquiu Workshop participants will tour on the last day of each workshop.) It took three years to renovate the crumbling Spanish-style hacienda and make it suitable for human habitation year-round. Her studio was outfitted with large glass walls that provided commanding views of the Chama River Valley. She continued to paint prolifically here until her eyesight began to fail in the 1970s. In 1984, failing health forced her to move to Santa Fe. She died in 1986 at the age of 98.
O’Keefe painted some of her best known works during her years in Ghost Ranch and Abiquiu. Works such as Desert Abstraction (1931) Blue River (1935) Red Hills and Pedernal (1936), From the Faraway Nearby (1937) and Black Place (1944) serve as powerful reflections of O’Keeffe’s private emotional connection with the land.
Abiquiu Workshops hopes that seeing the environs that provoked such profound feelings of awe in Georgia O’Keeffe will create a new perspective from which to better understand her work, and, ultimately, open your eyes in a way that will help you explore your inner self through the art you create in this sacred beautiful place.
Visit these sites for more information about Georgia O’Keeffe’s life, art, homes, and inspiration in New Mexico:
