Adolf Dehn achieved national recognition for both his painting and his print making and was much respected for his watercolors as for his work in oil. Dehn especially concentrated upon the medium of watercolor in the late 1930s and 1940s. Although the artist based his career in New York, he traveled widely and painted many images of the American Midwest and West as well as scenes of life and landscape from foreign countries. Principally a painter of landscape and genre, Dehn was an active participant in the issues of the Regionalist and American Scene movements.

In a letter dated 1941 to Ms. Elizabeth Navas, original Trustee of the Murdock Collection, Dehn explained the inspiration and circumstances for the painting Dust Storm. “The picture was made. . . from a very quick sketch which I made in Colorado between Pueblo and Walsenburg. I had never seen a dust storm and this one came up on us from the back (we were in a car) before we realized it. We all jumped out to photograph or sketch, but I had time only to get a few lines of the houses and foreground. Consequently, it was a picture mostly from memory.”