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 this, the work can be hung in different ways. The Wadsworth Atheneum, who owns the painting, displays it with the treetop facing the bottom edge. They note that "when the Wadsworth Atheneum acquired this painting from the artist, she confirmed its ambiguous orientation. At one point it was installed with the trunk emerging from the lower edge. It is presently shown, in keeping with her earlier preference, as it is oriented here, allowing the viewer to experience the artist’s favored vantage point."[3]
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).[4] She describes this painting as "a fitting and generous tribute to the author whose legacy she had become heir to."[5]
