An exhibition investigating the representation of trees in American art from the late nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century, featuring prints, drawings and sculptures.
Paper Trees is on view at the High Museum of Art from July 31, 2026, through February 21, 2027. You'll find it in the Works on Paper Gallery on the lower level of the High's Wieland Pavilion, so it's tucked away in the basement rather than out in the main galleries.
The exhibition looks at the tree as a subject in American art, following it from the first rough sketches artists made en plein air to the finished works that came later. It spans the late nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century, a period when the American conservationist movement was gaining ground and the public was becoming more interested in protecting the natural world. The show brings together nearly 50 prints, drawings, and sculptures from the High's own collection, with loans from the Robert C. Williams Museum of Papermaking and the Clark Atlanta University Art Museum.
What makes it work is the range. You'll see unfinished sketches alongside works that treat the tree as both material and metaphor, and those are put in dialogue with root sculptures and woodturning. It's less of a straight line and more of a conversation between the raw study and the final piece. The High itself is housed in buildings by Pritzker Prize winners Richard Meier and Renzo Piano and holds more than 20,000 works of art, so this is one of many galleries you can wander through while you're there.
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Paper Trees runs from July 31, 2026, through February 21, 2027, in the Works on Paper Gallery on the lower level of the High's Wieland Pavilion at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta.
