Abiquiu Sand Hills and Mesa

Although relatively small in scale, this long horizontal canvas conveys a striking sense of the panoramic views around Abiquiu, New Mexico. After visiting the area repeatedly, Georgia O’Keeffe bought a home there in 1945, and she painted this image of the sandy hills leading up to a massive flat-topped mesa the same year. The brilliant Southwestern light offered O’Keeffe immense visual clarity over many miles, and she translated her perception of distant geological formations—particularly the dark green mesa that dominates the top third of the composition— into an abstracted arrangement of stacked bands of color.