You’re standing in the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, looking at a painting that seems to defy gravity. It’s an explosion of dark pine needles, a massive, muscular trunk, and a sky so deep blue it feels like you’re falling into it. But something is wrong. Or, well, not wrong, just... disorienting. The tree trunk is growing from the top of the frame downward.
Basically, the Georgia O’Keeffe The Lawrence Tree is famously "upside down," and that’s exactly how she wanted it.
Most people expect landscape paintings to be polite. You know the type—horizon line in the middle, sky on top, ground on the bottom. O'Keeffe wasn't interested in being polite. In the summer of 1929, she escaped the stifling heat of New York and the intense gaze of her husband, Alfred Stieglitz, for the high desert of Taos, New Mexico. She stayed at the Kiowa Ranch, a place owned by Mabel Dodge Luhan but forever linked to the writer D.H. Lawrence.
Honestly, this wasn't just a vacation. It was a rebirth.
The Night Under the Ponderosa
There was a weathered carpenter’s bench sitting right at the base of a massive ponderosa pine in front of Lawrence’s cabin. O'Keeffe would lie flat on her back on that bench at night. She’d stare up through the branches, watching the stars get caught in the network of needles.
If you’ve ever done this—truly laid on the ground and looked straight up—the world shifts. You lose your sense of "up" and "down." The tree becomes a bridge to the stars rather than something rooted in dirt. That’s the specific, raw perspective she captured in Georgia O’Keeffe The Lawrence Tree.
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It’s a worm’s-eye view, but for the soul.
The painting itself is about 31 by 40 inches. Not huge, but it feels monumental because of the way she handled the scale. The trunk is this thick, reddish-brown column that dominates the space, looking almost like a limb or a living creature. Then you have the stars. They aren't just dots; they’re tiny punctures of light in the "powerful mystery" D.H. Lawrence himself described when writing about this same tree.
Why is it hung "wrong"?
For years, curators struggled with this piece. Even today, if you look at old catalogs or postcards, you might see the trunk coming up from the bottom. It looks "correct" that way to the logical brain.
But O'Keeffe was very clear. She once said the tree should "stand on its head." When the Wadsworth Atheneum acquired the piece in 1981—she was 94 at the time—she confirmed this ambiguous, rotating orientation. She wanted you to feel that same vertigo she felt on that carpenter's bench. If the trunk starts at the top, your eye follows it down and then out into the infinite blue. It forces you to inhabit her body, lying there in the New Mexico dirt.
D.H. Lawrence and the Ghost in the Branches
It’s worth noting that O'Keeffe and D.H. Lawrence never actually met. He had left the ranch years before she arrived and died in 1930, shortly after she finished the painting. Yet, she felt a profound connection to his work.
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Lawrence was a writer who obsessed over the "spirit of place." He felt the New Mexico landscape had a vibration unlike anywhere else on earth. When O'Keeffe painted Georgia O’Keeffe The Lawrence Tree, she wasn't just painting a pine. Some art historians, like Bonnie L. Grad, argue the painting is a literal homage to Lawrence’s "Lawrencean vision."
- The Connection: Lawrence called the tree a "guardian angel."
- The Perspective: He described the trunk as an "Egyptian column."
- The Legacy: After he died, his wife Frieda eventually brought his ashes back to the ranch.
The tree still stands today at what is now the D.H. Lawrence Ranch, managed by the University of New Mexico. You can actually go there, find the spot, and look up. It’s a pilgrimage site for O'Keeffe fans and Lawrence readers alike.
Breaking Down the Technique
O'Keeffe's style here is a bridge between her early abstraction and her later, more literal New Mexico landscapes.
The foliage is treated as a series of dark, nebulous clouds. She didn't paint every needle. Instead, she painted the feeling of the needles against the night sky. The edges are soft, almost fuzzy, which makes the stars look like they’re actually twinkling.
Then you have that blue. It’s not a flat navy. It’s a layered, luminous Prussian blue that feels like it has depth. It’s the kind of blue that makes you realize how thin our atmosphere really is. By placing the trunk at the top, she eliminates the horizon entirely. You are no longer on earth; you are in the cosmos.
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A Quick Reality Check on the "Value"
People often ask what a masterpiece like this is worth. While the Georgia O’Keeffe The Lawrence Tree isn't for sale—it’s a cornerstone of the Wadsworth Atheneum’s collection—O'Keeffe’s work from this period is among the most valuable in American history. For context, her Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1 sold for over $44 million in 2014.
This specific painting is priceless because it marks the exact moment Georgia O'Keeffe found her true home. Before 1929, she was a New York artist. After this tree, she was the Mother of American Modernism, and New Mexico was her kingdom.
How to Experience it Yourself
If you want to truly "get" this painting, don't just look at it on a screen.
- Visit Hartford: Go to the Wadsworth Atheneum. Stand in front of it. Wait for the moment your brain stops trying to flip it over and just accepts the descent into the blue.
- Lie Down: Next time you’re near a large tree at night, find a bench or a patch of grass. Lay flat. Put your head near the trunk.
- Read Lawrence: Pick up Pan in America. Read his descriptions of the "big pine tree in front of the house." It adds a layer of literary haunting to the visual experience.
The Georgia O’Keeffe The Lawrence Tree is a reminder that perspective is a choice. You can look at the world the way everyone else does, or you can lie on your back, flip everything upside down, and find the stars.
To see the tree in its original setting, you can visit the D.H. Lawrence Ranch north of Taos. The ranch is generally open to the public during the summer months, though it's always smart to check the University of New Mexico's official ranch website for current hours and trail conditions before heading up the mountain. Stand under the ponderosa, look up, and see if you can find the same "octopus-like" form that O'Keeffe immortalized nearly a century ago.