Georgia O'Keeffe began teaching art at West Texas State Normal College in Texas in 1916.
The college, now West Texas A&M University, was located in Canyon, in the Texas Panhandle. O'Keeffe taught there from 1916 to 1918, during a formative period when she was developing a more personal and abstract approach to art.
Her time in the Panhandle exposed her to the wide skies, plains, and dramatic landscapes of the region. These experiences helped shape the visual vocabulary she later brought to paintings of New Mexico and the broader American Southwest.
O'Keeffe had already trained as an artist and teacher in Virginia and elsewhere. She did not first encounter Southwestern light in New Mexico; Texas was an important earlier stage. She returned to the region decades later as a nationally established artist.