Alfred Maurer developed a strong friendship with Arthur Dove over many years, having first met in Paris in 1907 and continuing their friendship after Maurer resettled in America. Stacey Epstein observes that Dove helped to shape Maurer’s aesthetic approach. She writes: “Spurred by his association with Dove, Maurer himself took up pure abstraction, a stylistic aberration for him. He had previously grounded his work in nature, using it as a springboard but always retaining clear visual reference to the ideas and subjects he depicted. This move toward abstraction seems to have begun around 1919 and lasted into the 1920s." [1]

In addition to Dove, Maurer shared an affinity with others in the Stieglitz circle—O’Keeffe and Marin—artists who focused on the rhythms of nature through their own intuitive response as opposed to the prevailing American voice at the time based on industry and progress. These geometric abstractions of the 1919-20s are significant in anticipating his later Cubist experimentations.