Art in Focus

Portraits of Trees, a Favorite Subject of Artists

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“The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing that stands in the way . . . to the eyes of the man of imagination, nature is imagination itself.” ―William Blake

Have you ever fallen in love with a tree? You wouldn’t be the first. Henry David Thoreau “fell in love with a shrub oak,” and many artists have been charmed by these natural sculptures. Our collection includes hundreds of works featuring maples, redwoods, willows, and oaks. In several of them, trees aren’t just a detail, but the main subject.

Take a look at these loving and lively portraits of trees. Artists like Ansel Adams, Albert Bierstadt, Sally Mann, and Claude Monet are known for their depictions of the natural world. Others on this list may be more unexpected, but they also showed their admiration for trees: Alex Katz, Gordon Parks, and Mark Rothko.

We’ve organized the works by medium, so you can compare the works of different painters, photographers, and printmakers. We’ve even highlighted the works on view in our galleries, so you can try a visual version of tree hugging on your next visit. Since it’s Earth Month, may this virtual forest serve as a reminder of our duty to conserve our trees.

Trees to See

You can find these trees in our galleries right now. Paintings by French impressionist Claude Monet and German-American Hudson River School painter Albert Bierstadt are no surprise—both are known for images of nature, including gardens, mountain ranges, and of course, trees. Other works might be a little more unexpected. While American artist Alex Katz is recognized for figure paintings, he has also painted many scenes of Maine. Swamp Maple (4:30) features a single sapling. Katz left the cracked paint untouched to look like the tree’s rough bark.

If you’ve visited our Sculpture Garden, you may have been surprised to see a tree made from an unusual material―stainless steel. American painter and sculptor Roxy Paine’s work is called Graft, a reference to the process of joining one tree or plant to the bud, stem, or root of another. From a certain angle, you can see one set of the tree’s branches stretch straight up; others are twisted and extend more horizontally. The sculpture comes from Paine’s series, Dendroids (which refers to branching like a tree).

One of the best galleries for tree lovers is gallery 93 on the West Building’s Main Floor. Almost all the works there—by artists such as Horace Vernet, Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, and Narcisse Virgile Diaz de la Peña—show the French painters’ admiration for the woods.

Between us and a river lined with buildings on the far bank in the distance, tall willow trees nearly span the height of this horizontal landscape. The scene is loosely painted, and the color palette is almost completely dominated by cool tones of spring, sage, celery, and kelly green, and steel and sea blue. The grasses near us are painted with diagonal strokes that alternate direction and color as they move back toward the river. Golden yellow daubs in the lower right suggest blooms, and leaves on the trees are created with thin, upward strokes and dabs along slender branches. The trees reach high into a sky filled with sweeps of beige, blush pink, and spring green layered over pale blue. The river is a lavender gray, and the low, tightly clustered buildings are painted with a mix of ochre, peach, and denim blue. The artist has signed and dated the work in the lower right corner, though the final digit is illegible: “Claude Monet 188.” — Claude Monet, *The Willows*, 1880, oil on canvas, Corcoran Collection (Edward C. and Mary Walker Collection), 2015.19.65

Alex Katz, *Swamp Maple (4:30)*, 1968, oil on linen, Gift of the Collectors Committee, 2008.34.1

Christian Rohlfs, *White Beeches in Fall*, 1910, oil on canvas, Collection of Arnold and Joan Saltzman, 2020.112.5

Narcisse Diaz de la Peña, *The Edge of the Forest at Les Monts-Girard, Fontainebleau*, 1868, oil on canvas, Chester Dale Fund, 2000.37.1

This horizontal photograph shows the twisting branches of a shiny silver tree, the sculpture rising high above the treetops of the living trees behind it. The trunk breaks into two sets of branches about a fifth of the way up the height of the sculpture. The branches to our left in this photograph curve and wind up and out while the branches to our right flare up in straighter lines. Diffused sunlight on the overcast day glints off the metal, creating bright white highlights against steel-gray shadows. The sculpture sits on a patch of grass with bushes and trees behind it. — Roxy Paine, *Graft*, 2008-2009, stainless steel and concrete, Gift of Victoria and Roger Sant, 2009.109.1

We look across the gleaming, forest-green surface of a lake at the foot of tall, jagged mountains in this horizontal landscape painting. The lake is flanked by a steep, gingerbread-brown hill on the left and a shoreline that forms a backward C curving from the lower center around and back along the right side of the composition. Strong sunlight from the upper left illuminates the center of the left-hand hill and the shoreline. The ground to our right is carpeted in rust-red, sage-green, and tan growth and is dotted with boulders. Tall trees with rust-brown trunks, crooked branches, and narrow canopies of caramel-brown and olive-green leaves fill the far end. Closest to us are dead tree trunks jutting out of the water and or lying on a flat, rocky outcropping nearby. Beyond the outcropping is a small black bear wandering down a sliver of sand-colored ground at the water’s edge. The hill on the left is covered with vertical rows of upright jagged boulders and slender, dark green trees marching up its slopes. A narrow, artic-blue waterfall cascades down its right side to empty into the lake. A thick layer of towering blue-gray clouds rises over the hill and lake, stretching back to the looming, snow-covered peaks that nearly brush the top edge of the canvas. The sky around the peak is vivid blue, scattered with high white clouds. The artist signed the lower right, “ABierstadt” with the A and B joined as a monogram. — Albert Bierstadt, *Mount Corcoran*, c. 1876-1877, oil on canvas, Corcoran Collection (Museum Purchase, Gallery Fund), 2014.79.4

A leafless, ash-white tree trunk has fallen from a broken stump into the wide V of a neighboring tree at the edge of a body of water near a verdant forest in this horizontal landscape painting. The fallen trunk creates a diagonal from near the lower left corner to the upper right. As it fell, it sheared off a substantial branch from a neighboring tree with a dark trunk. The bark where the damaged branch has pulled away is honey-orange, the same color as the leaves at the canopy, which has been pinned under the fallen trunk. Trees, vines, and other vegetation fill the space around and beyond this pair. In the lower right corner of the painting, vines grow over a broken stump, which deep in shadow. Between the stump and fallen tree, the peanut-brown surface of the water is smooth. Tiny in scale beneath the fallen tree and easily overlooked, there are two men and a dog in a boat. One man stands at the back of the boat and pushes it along with a long pole. He wears a tall, brown, cloth hat, a white shirt rolled up to the elbows under a blue vest, and loose-fitting pants. A second man wears a flat-topped, white hat with a black brim, a long, forest-green jacket, and tight-fitting slate-blue pants. He braces a rifle against one shoulder and shoots into the forest. The dog is white with brown spots, and it stands with its front paws on the edge of the boat, presumably ready to spring after the target. A patch of blue sky with puffy white clouds is seen above the trees in the upper left corner. The artist signed and dated the work in the lower right corner: “H. Vernet Rome 1833.” — Horace Vernet, *Hunting in the Pontine Marshes*, 1833, oil on canvas, Chester Dale Fund, 1989.3.1

Paintings of Trees

One of the most regal portrayals of a tree in our collection has to be French painter Jules Dupré’s The Old Oak. Dupré spent most of his career painting landscapes ranging from sparsely wooded plains to lush forests. He honors the giant oak by placing it at the center of his composition with a small figure walking by for scale.

Dutch landscape painter Jacob van Ruisdael is known for paintings of massive trees towering above a rocky countryside. In Forest Scene, a split birch tree in the right foreground symbolizes the fact that life is fleeting and death is inevitable.

Hudson River School painter Thomas Cole’s Tornado in an American Forest is similarly somber. Split and uprooted trees show destruction from a tornado. Look closely to the left and you’ll see a small figure who may have been protected by the giant trees.

Cool light filters through a thick, verdant forest in this vertical landscape painting. Most of the trees have high canopies with celery, matcha, and olive-green leaves. Moss carpets the trunks of five trees looming over us from across a narrow brook. Dead, sienna-brown tree limbs with sharp, broken branches lie scattered in the dense vegetation on the forest floor. The trees and undergrowth recede into the distance where a gap reveals a glimpse of a blue-gray mountain silhouetted against a milky sky. The artist signed the lower right, “ABD.” — Asher Brown Durand, *Forest in the Morning Light*, c. 1855, oil on canvas, Gift of Frederick Sturges, Jr., 1978.6.2

Five monkeys rest and play amid a lush jungle landscape in this horizontal landscape painting. Painted with areas of flat color, thick vegetation fills most of the scene, with giant leaves overlapping in shades of green. At the bottom center, a large brown monkey sits upright on a rock, looking directly at us. To our left, two gray and black monkeys climb in trees, and also face us. To our right, two rust-orange monkeys swing in trees. The orange of their fur is echoed in spiky, pumpkin-orange flowers to the right. Dark red leafy plants with spiky white flowers fill the lower left corner of the painting. A cloudless, pale blue sky stretches across the top of the composition. The artist signed and dated the painting with white letters in the lower right: “Henri Rousseau 1910.” — Henri Rousseau, *Tropical Forest with Monkeys*, 1910, oil on canvas, John Hay Whitney Collection, 1982.76.7

Jules Dupré, *The Old Oak*, c. 1870, oil on canvas, Gift of R. Horace Gallatin, 1949.1.5

Two thick, twisting, splintered tree trunks with broken branches stripped of leaves are set against a dark, wooded landscape beneath a nearly black sky in this horizontal landscape painting. The scene is dominated by coffee brown and tan, dark pewter and smoke gray, and olive green. The two trunks, set to our left of center, are the most brightly lit objects in the landscape, presumably lit from the break in the clouds in the upper right corner. More trees create a screen across the painting beyond the tree trunks. Though nearly swallowed in shadow, a couple of taller trees in the distance show that they bend nearly horizontally in a strong wind. The left half of the sky above is almost black, and it lightens a bit toward the break in the clouds to our right. Only closer inspection reveals a person standing near the base of the trunk to our right, possibly bracing against its trunk. Their dark hair blows back from their face and their navy blue jacket is lifted in the wind. The artist signed and dated the work as if he wrote it on a rock at the lower center of the painting: “T Cole 183,” the last digit missing. — Thomas Cole, *Tornado in an American Forest*, 1831, oil on canvas, Corcoran Collection (Museum Purchase, Gallery Fund), 2014.136.117

A broken white and gray birch tree trunk has fallen across a rocky, shallow waterfall at the edge of a dense, deeply shadowed forest in this horizontal landscape painting. The narrow stream winds toward us from the forest to splash into a rocky pool that nearly spans the width of the painting along the bottom edge. The tree trunk angles from our right down into the pool, having lost most of its branches. Broken off near the base, the gnarled roots of the tree dig into a rocky outcropping along the right edge of the composition. Farther back and tiny in scale, two people walk along the stream. One person wears a black dress and white cap, and carries a basket, and the other person wears a light, brimmed hat, a ruby-red shirt, and dark pants. Under the trees beyond, four sheep graze in a meadow. The bushes, vegetation, and trees of the forest spring up beyond the sheep, painted with tones of sage, moss, olive, and dark pine green. A grove of trees to our right in the middle distance, including one white birch trunk, nearly reaches the top edge of the canvas. Steel-gray bottomed clouds with white, fluffy tops create a diagonal line across the tree tops. A wedge of pale blue sky is exposed in the upper left corner. A few dark birds fly high in the sky. The artist signed the painting in the lower right, “J v Ruisdael.” — Jacob van Ruisdael, *Forest Scene*, c. 1655, oil on canvas, Widener Collection, 1942.9.80

Morton Livingston Schamberg, *Landscape*, c. 1912, oil on composition board, Corcoran Collection (Gift of Joan B. Detweiler), 2015.19.93

Photographs of Trees

Many photographers have been inspired by the towering trees in California’s Yosemite National Park. Binh Danh explored his connection to American landscapes as a Vietnamese American when he made his daguerreotype, Sugar Pine Tree, Yosemite, CA, April 2, 2012. Yosemite is also where photographer Carleton E. Watkins took his picture of the famous Grizzly Giant sequoia. Watkins made some of the first photographs of these landscapes, shaping our understanding of the American West. His images influenced the establishment of the national park. Ansel Adams first began using a camera when he visited Yosemite at age 12. His later photographs of America’s landscapes helped campaigns advocating for the expansion of the national parks.

Maybe one of the most famous photographs of a tree is Sally Mann’s Deep South, Untitled (Scarred Tree). Mann focused her lens on the gash in the tree’s trunk. The healed, but still visible, wound reminds us that trees are “silent witness” to history, vessels for memory. In this work, the American photographer is also referencing French photographer Gustave Le Gray’s Beech Tree, Forest of Fontainebleau.

Binh Danh, *Sugar Pine Tree, Yosemite, CA, April 2, 2012*, 2012, daguerreotype, Alfred H. Moses and Fern M. Schad Fund, 2013.54.1

Carleton E. Watkins, *Grizzly Giant, Mariposa Grove*, 1861, albumen print, Gift of Mary and David Robinson, 1995.35.24

A tree trunk spanning the height of this horizontal photograph is scarred across its middle with a long, dark gash near its roots. The image is monochromatic like a black and white photograph but the white has a warm, almost golden ivory glow. The details of the trunk are crisp, in focus, while the wire fence, field, and trees in the background are blurry. The tree’s branches dip into the scene from the top edge of the photograph, and they are also out of focus. The top corners of the view are rounded, and filled in with black. — Sally Mann, *Deep South, Untitled (Scarred Tree)*, 1998, gelatin silver print, Alfred H. Moses and Fern M. Schad Fund, 2016.112.1

Gordon Parks, *Lane in Fort Scott, Kansas*, 1963, printed later, silver dye bleach print, Corcoran Collection (The Gordon Parks Collection), 2016.117.234

Gustave Le Gray, *Beech Tree, Forest of Fontainebleau*, c. 1856, albumen print, Patrons' Permanent Fund, 1995.36.93

JoAnn Verburg, *3 x THREE*, 2019, 3 inkjet prints, Purchased as a Gift of Kaywin Feldman, Beverly Grossman, Diane and David Lilly, Nivin MacMillan, and Sheila Morgan, 2021.14.1.a-c

Drawings and Prints of Trees

American painter, printmaker, and pastelist Sylvia Plimack Mangold has spent decades observing the trees around her studio. Her beautiful woodblock The Nut Trees shows two bare trees against a swath of marigold. The Oak by American realist painter Andrew Wyeth is so detailed, it’s hard to believe it is a drawing. Made with watercolor, gouache, ink, and graphite, Wyeth’s drawing looks up the trunk of a tree so tall we can’t even see the top.

You may be surprised to find a work by American artist Mark Rothko here. While most are familiar with his abstract paintings, Rothko also made figurative watercolors (depicting things we recognize), some of which will be included in our upcoming exhibition Mark Rothko: Paintings on Paper.

American painter and printmaker Joseph Norman has made many works of trees and forests. His untitled lithograph shows densely tangled branches, each with a different bark pattern.

Sylvia Plimack Mangold, *The Nut Trees*, 1985, color woodblock on Echizen Kozo paper, Gift of Kathan Brown, 1998.40.355

Andrew Wyeth, *The Oak*, 1940-1945, watercolor, gouache, brush and black ink, graphite, blotting, over graphite on paperboard, Gift of Edward Hyde Cox, 1998.92.4

Joseph Norman, *Untitled*, 1998, lithograph in brown with chine collé on Arches wove paper, Gift of Dr. and Mrs. William Tsiaras, 2000.46.1

John Constable, *A Great Oak Tree*, c. 1801, black chalk with gray wash on laid paper, laid down, Gift of Paul Mellon, 1985.9.1

Mark Rothko, *Untitled (forest interior)*, 1933, watercolor on watercolor paper, Gift of The Mark Rothko Foundation, Inc., 1986.56.596

Margaret Patterson, *Windblown Trees*, c. 1920, color woodcut, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund, 2022.50.1

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