Provincial Olive Grove 

Rose O'Neill, the artist best known as the creator of the Kewpie, painted "Provincial Olive Grove" using oil on canvas. O'Neill lived a life that was anything but conventional. She became the first self-supporting American female cartoonist. As an artist, illustrator, writer, and political activist, she advocated for women's rights at a time when society was less than receptive. She once said, "I came to New York with no fixed plan but to do something remarkable." "Provincial Olive Grove" captures the golden, sun-drenched light filtering through the trees. It's rendered in a style that departs from O'Neill's better known commercial work. There is instead an evocative, ethereal quality. The canvas seems to shimmer with light. The scene may remind us of the importance of having a space of one's own, as Virginia Woolf would say, a space in which to explore and create. It shows a place to be sheltered, to be shaded, and to dream.