Pace will present Julian Schnabel: Italy through its trees, a presentation of a new body of paintings by the artist, at its 540 West 25th Street gallery in New York from May 15 to August 14. Comprised of paintings on maps and plate paintings featuring the native Italian umbrella pine, the exhibition signals a new chapter in Schnabel’s decades-long relationship with the country through two of his longest running bodies of work.

Since Schnabel’s first visit to Italy in his twenties, when he made a pilgrimage to see Giotto’s Scrovegni Chapel and the paintings of Caravaggio and Piero della Francesca, the country’s landscapes, architecture, and antiquities have been a powerful source of inspiration. Schnabel began thinking more deeply about these particular Italian trees as a subject last year, while living near the Villa Borghese in Rome during the filming of his forthcoming feature film, In the Hand of Dante.

The gardens surrounding the Villa are famously populated by Pinus pinea, the “Italian stone pine,” whose wide plumes of foliage resemble unfurled umbrellas. After production of the film was complete, Schnabel took refuge in Ansedonia, where his house was surrounded by a similar grove of trees. There, en plein air, he began work on a group of paintings on maps depicting the pines around the house. These works led to a corresponding group of plate paintings exploring the same subject matter, which together comprise the exhibition at Pace.