The point, says museum curator Jennifer Vigil, is to illustrate the Southwestern setting that captured O'Keeffe's heart and inspired countless paintings, sketches and photographs. The exhibit would be best appreciated by those familiar with O'Keeffe's works or enamored with Southwestern motifs or, as Vigil says, by those who understand the kind of influence a region can have on artists. Marvin Cone and Grant Wood were influenced by their landscapes.
Landscapes really resonate with people in Iowa and the Midwest.
O'Keeffe was not from the Southwest, but she was so inspired there that she stayed. She was profoundly influenced by her environment. Instead of farmhouse scenes and fields of corn, O'Keeffe's environment included deserts, cacti and snow-covered mountains on the horizon. Webb, who died earlier this month, shot the images between 1955 and 1981. He was 95.