The Southwest has long beckoned the artist. But too often, art made by Euro-Americans drawn to this region has either "basked in the sunny celebration of the picturesque, the exotic, and the sentimental" or appropriated the myths and art of Native Americans. In this collection of essays, Sharyn R. Udall explores the work of some of the painters who have found stimulus in the ideas, people, and myths of the Southwest, among them Georgia O'Keeffe, Marsden Hartley, Page Allen, and Woody Gwyn.

They saw the Southwest in new ways, drawing inspiration from the very light and topography of the region. Udall's goal is to open and enlarge the discussion by rejecting the "neat, circumscribed way of seeing" common to traditional art history. Thus, she declares, one is able to encourage a fresh look at these painters and their work, and at the larger relationships of nature and culture in the Southwest.