Immersed in the avant-garde circles of Paris at the beginning of the twentieth-century, Alfred Maurer became one of the first Americans to advocate for innovative European modernist painting styles. Although in genre and subject Maurer’s Still Life with Zinnias is reminiscent of the academic-style floral still lifes of Henri Fantin-Latour (1836-1904) and the soft, impressionistic style of Frederick Carl Frieseke (1874-1939), Maurer took a novel approach to the floral still life. Featuring three bright, round flowers in a pedestal glass vase, Maurer employed non-naturalistic, often complementary colors in loose dabs of unmodulated paint—a hallmark of Fauvist techniques.

Around the time Maurer painted Still Life with Zinnias, he developed a strong friendship with fellow American artist Arthur Dove (1880-1946), having first met in Paris in 1907 and continuing their friendship after Maurer resettled in America. In addition to Dove, Maurer shared an affinity with other artists in the dealer Alfred Stieglitz’ circle— specifically Georgia O’Keeffe (1886-1986) and John Marin (1870-1953). Still Life with Zinnias, with its bold color and spontaneous brushwork anticipates the zoomed-in, semi-abstracted floral paintings synonymous with O’Keeffe’s work beginning in the 1920s, such as O’Keeffe’s 3 Zinnias (1921; Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, Santa Fe, New Mexico).