Agnes Pelton : desert transcendentalist
Agnes Pelton (Artist), Gilbert Vicario (Editor, Contributor), Erika Doss (Author), Michael Zakian (Author), Elizabeth Armstrong (Author), Susan L. Aberth (Author), Rachel Sadvary Zebro (Author), Phoenix Art Museum (Issuing body, Organizer, Host institution), New Mexico Museum of Art (Host institution), Whitney Museum of American Art (Host institution), Palm Springs Art Museum (Host institution)
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. The publication seeks to clarify the artists 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
Print Book, English, 2019
Hirmer Verlag ; Phoenix Art Museum, Munich, Germany, Phoenix, Arizona, 2019