Georgia O'Keeffe painted The Lawrence Tree in 1929. The work shows the underside of a tree against a brilliant blue sky and was inspired by a tree near the ranch in northern New Mexico associated with D. H. Lawrence.
O'Keeffe encountered the tree during her first extended visit to New Mexico. By looking upward through its branches, she turned a familiar natural object into a bold, flattened composition. The painting connects her interest in landscape with her broader practice of isolating forms and changing the viewer's point of view.
The title refers to the English writer D. H. Lawrence, who lived at the nearby ranch in 1924. O'Keeffe's painting is not a portrait of Lawrence or an illustration of one of his books; its subject is the tree and sky, with the literary connection supplying the location's historical context.