The Cliff Dweller

This tree could be Old Veteran, a famous Monterey cypress that still clings to the rocky cliff at Point Lobos, along California’s Pacific coast. Pedro de Lemos used opaque white paint to accentuate its weather-ravaged roots and bark. He then fortified the upper parts with rich, velvety blacks.

Lemos’s parents emigrated from the Portuguese Azores. Marie Lemos raised their four children; Francisco Lemos made boots. When Pedro heard about a Spanish nobleman with the last name of de Lemos, however, he decided to adopt that lineage as his own. In 1933, he squeezed the aristocratic-sounding “de” into his signature on prints he’d made earlier, as he did here.