Born in Paris, Texas, and raised in Dallas, Oliver took up painting as a teenager. Her talent quickly caught the attention of her teacher, Frank Reaugh, who hired her as his assistant. During the late 1920s and early 1930s, she accompanied Reaugh and his students on sketching trips to Big Bend and other scenic regions of West Texas.

Likely dating to one of these trips, this small pastel exemplifies Oliver’s sense of design and her skills as a colorist. Pinholes on the corners of the sheet indicate that she affixed it to her sketch box before recording a view of a distant mesa screened by a scraggy mesquite tree. Scattered amid the blacks and dark browns of the gnarled branches, touches of bright pink, orange, and red capture speckled patterns of sunlight, shadow, and peeling bark, while in the background bands of blue and purple suggest the diffuse haze of midafternoon.

—Text taken from the Carter Handbook (2023)