Chidlow, Connecticut

Wanda Gág declared that no person or thing sent her into ecstasy like this old apple tree. Starting in 1923 she fled New York City for the countryside a good part of every year, and this tree was at a house she rented in Connecticut. She drew it obsessively, struck by the vitality of its smooth, dead branches. In some drawings, like this one on sandpaper, the tree turned sinister and its branches, she said, became claws.