LOS ANGELES, CA.- Michael Rosenfeld Gallery's presentation at Frieze LA includes two luminous paintings by pioneering American modernist Agnes Pelton (1881–1961), exemplifying her distinctive, visionary approach to abstraction. “These pictures are like little windows,” Pelton wrote in a 1929 artist’s statement, “opening to the view of a region not yet much visited consciously or by intention—an inner realm, rather than an outer landscape. …Here color is like a voice, giving its message directly.”

Born in Stuttgart, Germany to American parents, Agnes Pelton was raised in Brooklyn, NY. She moved to Long Island in 1921, where, inspired by her garden and the changing seasons, she turned to abstract painting with a deep, zen-like reverence for nature. Today, she is most commonly associated with the Southern California desert, where she moved in 1932. Settling in Cathedral City, CA, her home for the rest of her life, Pelton pursued her interests in Buddhism, Theosophy, and Agni yoga while connecting with like-minded artists. Through her inclusion in a 1933 group show at the Museum of New Mexico in Santa Fe, Pelton was introduced to painter Raymond Jonson (1891-1982), who shared her interests in spirituality and abstraction. Pelton’s friendship with Jonson led to the formation of the Transcendental Painting Group (TPG) in 1938, of which she was the first president. This organization of ten artists, mostly based in New Mexico, included Jonson, Emil Bisttram, Ed Garman, Robert Gribbroek, Lawren Harris, William Lumpkins, Florence Miller Pierce, Horace Towner Pierce, and Stuart Walker.

The TPG represented a new approach to abstraction. Profoundly inspired by the light, landscape, and history of the American Southwest, these artists gathered under the term “Transcendental” because it implied an intuitive, spiritual way of painting. In the words of the group’s manifesto, their goal was “to carry painting beyond the appearance of the physical world, through new concepts of space, color, light, and design.” As Sleep (1928) and Flowering (1929) reveal, Pelton was embodying the philosophical tenets of the TPG a decade before its formation, distinguishing her as one of the most original artists of the modern era.

In recent years, Pelton’s work has garnered new scholarship and critical attention, including the major traveling exhibition “Agnes Pelton: Desert Transcendentalist” (2019-2021). Curated by Gilbert Vicario, Selig Family Chief Curator at the Phoenix Art Museum in Phoenix, AZ, this retrospective survey traveled from Phoenix to the New Mexico Museum of Art in Santa Fe, NM; Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, NY; and Palm Springs Art Museum in Palm Springs, CA, and was accompanied by a catalogue featuring new scholarship by art historians Susan L. Aberth, Elizabeth Armstrong, Erika Doss, and Michael Zakian.

Works by Agnes Pelton are in the collections of the Colby College Museum of Art, Colby College, Waterville, ME; Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, CA; Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, AR; The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, San Francisco, CA; Honolulu Museum of Art, Honolulu, HI; The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens, San Marino, CA; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA; Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY; New Mexico Museum of Art, Santa Fe, NM; New York Historical Society, New York, NY; Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art, Utah State University, Logan, UT; Oakland Museum of California, Oakland, CA; Orange County Museum of Art, Costa Mesa, CA; Parrish Art Museum, Southampton, NY; Palm Springs Art Museum, Palm Springs, CA; Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix, AZ; UCI Institute and Museum for California Art, Irvine, CA; San Diego Museum of Art, San Diego, CA; Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara, CA; University of New Mexico Art Museum, Albuquerque, NM; and Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY.