WILLIAM ALEXANDER LAMBETH | TREES AND HOW TO KNOW THEM. RICHMOND: (1911), GEORGIA O'KEEFFE'S COPY

WILLIAM ALEXANDER LAMBETH

TREES AND HOW TO KNOW THEM: A MANUAL WITH ANALYTICAL AND DICHOTOMOUS KEYS OF THE PRINCIPAL FOREST TREE OF THE SOUTH. RICHMOND: B. F. JOHNSON PUBLISHING COMPANY, (1911)

8vo (7 3/8 x 5 1/4 in.) Half-title, photographic frontispiece of a white oak. Publisher's green cloth, front cover lettered in gilt and stamped with a vignette of oak leaves and acorns.

First edition; Georgia O'Keeffe's copy, signed by her on the front pastedown: "Georgia O'Keeffe | University —Virginia | August 5th—1913."

O’Keeffe studied at the University of Virginia every summer from 1912 to 1916, during the time that W. A. Lambeth was Professor of Field Botany at the University's Summer School. (Lambeth was also a professor of Materia Medica and Hygiene, Head of the Department of Physical Education, and the schools first Athletic Director.)

Trees informed O'Keeffe's art throughout her career: her "paintings based on tree imagery are among the most diverse and compelling of her nature-derived subjects. They are milestones on an artistic journey that took her repeatedly from realism to abstraction and back again" (Sharyn Rohlfsen Udall, Carr, O`Keeffe, Kahlo: Places of Their Own, p. 127).

LITERATURE:

Sarah L. Burt, The Book Room: Georgia O’Keeffe’s Library in Abiquiu, New York, p. 42

PROVENANCE:

Georgia O’Keeffe, Abiquiu, New Mexico

By descent to the present owner