The Lawrence Tree is a painting by Georgia O'Keeffe in 1929 of a large ponderosa pine tree on the D. H. Lawrence Ranch in Taos County, New Mexico.[1][2] The tree still survives (as of 2016), and may be visited at the Lawrence Ranch.

The Lawrence Tree
The Lawrence Tree, 1929
Artist	Georgia O'Keeffe
Year	1929 (1929)
Medium	Painting
Subject	Ponderosa pine
Location	Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut
Accession	1981.23
Website	Wadsworth Atheneum

Background

D. H. Lawrence and Frieda Lawrence lived in a cabin near the tree, under which the author sat on a weathered bench and wrote on a table.[1][2]

The big pine tree in front of the house, standing still and unconcerned and alive...the overshadowing tree whose green top one never looks at... One goes out of the door and the tree-trunk is there, like a guardian angel. The tree-trunk, the long work table and the fence!

— D. H. Lawrence[1]

Overview

In 1929, O'Keeffe stayed with Mabel Dodge Luhan, who was a patroness who brought modernists to the Taos art colony. While there she visited the ranch and painted the tree. The perspective was captured by lying down on the bench and looking into the night sky through the branches of the tree.[1][2] Because of the perspective, it could be hung different ways. It is displayed upside down on the website for the Wadsworth Atheneum, who owns the painting.[2]

Art historian Bonnie L. Grad has shown that O'Keeffe's painting is not simply a depiction of this monumental tree, but is an homage to Lawrence, whose writings were an important though generally overlooked source of inspiration for the artist (as explored in Grad's 1998 article, "Georgia O'Keeffe's Lawrencean Vision" in the Archives of American Art Journal).[3] She describes this painting as "a fitting and generous tribute to the author whose legacy she had become heir to."[4]

References