D.H. Lawrence Tree

Object NamePastel

Artist / Maker Ellen Wagener (American, b. 1964)

Date2011

MediumPastel on paper, framed

Dimensions60 × 40 × 1 in. (152.4 × 101.6 × 2.5 cm)

ClassificationsDrawings

Credit LinePurchased by University Museums. In the permanent collection, Brunnier Art Museum, University Museums, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa.

Object numberUM2015.90

Status

Not on view

Collections

CultureAmerican

Label Text"In 1929, artist Georgia O'Keeffe painted a nighttime picture of an impressive Ponderosa tree she found on the property where novelist D. H. Lawrence had lived in New Mexico, in 1924 and 1925. She called it The D. H. Lawrence Tree, and it became notable for having been hung upside down for decades until it was discovered by researchers. O'Keeffe meant for the painting to be viewed as if she was lying underneath it with her head against the trunk, looking skyward. When I created my version of the D. H. Lawrence Tree I wanted to first experience the tree exactly as O'Keeffe did, by lying with my head against the tree. I spent several hours under the huge tree, gazing up at the kaleidoscope of twisted branches and frenetic patterns. Over three years of painstakingly drawing the "D. H. Lawrence Tree," the series was complete with eleven paintings." - Ellen Wagener ___________________________________________________ From the University Museums Collections Handbook, vol. 2, 2025: The Iowa landscape has been a constant source of inspiration for pastel artist Ellen Wagener. The unbroken vistas of rural fields and farmlands native to Iowa have been her muse throughout her career and she has won accolades for the accuracy and beauty of her depictions. As a native Iowan, born in Maquoketa and raised in DeWitt, but now residing in Arizona, Wagener’s memories of the land of her childhood have remained with her. Wagener’s landscapes display a reverence for nature and a passion for the rural lifestyle that is quickly disappearing throughout many of the Midwestern states. Her scenes encompass all that is stunning about the Iowa landscape, from the subtle colorations of the field to the immense sky with its ever-changing cloud formations. Wagener’s version of the D.H. Lawrence Tree is her own interpretation after finding inspiration in the Georgia O’Keeffe original from 1929. A depiction of a grand Ponderosa tree on a New Mexico property where Lawrence stayed in the 1920s, Wagener shifted the timing of the image from the night to the day. Holding to O’Keefe’s original vision as though you were laying under the tree and looking up, Wagener did just that at this very tree. After hours of contemplation and years in the studio, she created her own series expressing the off-kilter viewpoint of twisting branches.

Locations