Georgia O'Keeffe's encounters with modern art in 1908 at Alfred Stieglitz's New York gallery inspired her style of bold, simplified forms and strong, pure colors. She went on to become a major modernist.

Natural light fascinated O'Keeffe. At the Taos art colony in 1929, the effects of the bright New Mexican light and the desert's landscape overwhelmed her. In Soft Gray, Alcalde Hill--unusual for its muted but still luminous colors--O'Keeffe captures the tones of the sun-bleached hills, highlighting their shapes with glowing light. .

Courtesy of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, gift of Joseph H. Hirshhorn, 1972.