Working on a commission to paint the Grand Canyon for the Santa Fe Railroad, Leigh made his first trip to the West in 1906 and spent the subsequent three summers working in New Mexico. With great interest and keen observation, Leigh gained an authoritative knowledge and understanding of the local Indian cultures which became the prominent feature of his many genre pictures. Although the artist had studied genre painting in Düsseldorf, between 1906 and 1914, more than half of Leigh's works were landscapes.

An invitation in 1910 to record artistically a hunting trip in Cody, Wyoming led Leigh to spend the following three summers executing hundreds of sketches of the Yellowstone region. Preliminary drawings depicting nature with calculated precision resulted in View of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone which also reveals an experimentation with Impressionism, a curiosity of the artist since his early days in Munich. Capturing the majestic beauty of the Yellowstone falls, this work demonstrates the artist's ability to record the sensational light and color flooding the canyon. View of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone reflects the influence of the watercolors of Leigh's contemporary, Thomas Moran.