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Rediscovered: female American modernist

Abstract art that reflects the artist’s spiritual beliefs

Pelton's works are poetic celebrations of nature that explores the vital forces animating the physical world

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Agnes Pelton

Desert Transcendentalist

Agnes Pelton: Desert Transcendentalist will be the first survey of this under recognized American painter in over 22 years. Her distinctive paintings could be described as metaphysical landscapes rooted in the California desert near Cathedral City. Pelton chiefly drew on her own inspirations, superstitions, and beliefs to exemplify emotional states.

description

The publication seeks to clarify the artist’s significance and role within the cannon of American Modernism but also against the legacy of European abstraction. It contextualizes her work against her contemporaries, Marsden Hartley and Georgia O’Keeffe, and their distinct versions of American spiritual modernism. Pelton’s highly symbolic paintings were inspired by religious sources ranging from Theosophy and Agni Yoga to the spiritual teachings of Dane Rudhyar and Will Levington Comfort. Over three decades she devoted herself to painting spiritual abstractions, which conveyed her “light message to the world.”

press commentaries

There is nothing quite like Pelton’s paintings in 20th-century American art. It is the insouciant ease with which her images navigate between high and low, making that spirituality widely available, if not irresistible.

The New York Times

A rare opportunity to experience Pelton's profoundly spiritual body of work and to confirm her place in art history.

Arte por Excelencias

Es gilt, einen eigenwilligen kreativen Kopf zu entdecken, eine Malerin mit einem Gespür nicht nur für Farben und Kompositionen, sondern für die Sehnsucht moderner Menschen nach dem Quäntchen mehr im Dasein, das den konfektionierten Alltag lebenswert macht.

Die Zeit

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