She is a Tree of Life to Them was made by Consuelo Kanaga in Maitland, Florida, where she had taken up brief residence in an artists’ colony in the winter of 1950. Venturing into the reclaimed agricultural swampland around Maitland, she took this and many other photographs of African-American field workers, including Mother and Son (The Question, Florida) (lot 39).

The image gained icon status, as well as its title, in Edward Steichen’s 1955 blockbuster exhibition The Family of Man. There it was paired with a phrase from Proverbs 3:18—‘She is a tree of life to them that lay hold upon her: and happy is everyone that retaineth her’—and has been known by that title ever since. For Steichen, the photograph represented an archetype of motherhood, and he often referred to it as one of his favorite images in the show. He wrote, ‘How completely this picture speaks . . . for itself! This woman has been drawing her children to her, protecting them, for thousands of years against hurt and discrimination’ (The New York Times Magazine, 29 April 1962, pp. 62-63).