Transcendental Painting Group

Florence Miller Pierce (American, 1918–2007), Blue Forms, 1942. Oil on canvas, 29 3/4 x 34 in. Collection of Georgia and Michael de Havenon, New York.

Raymond Jonson (American, 1891–1982), Oil No. 2, 1942. Oil on canvas, 42 x 36 in. Crocker Art Museum Purchase, George and Bea Gibson Fund with contributions from Barbara and William Hyland and Loren G. Lipson, M.D., 2015.25.

Robert Gribbroek (American, 1906–1971), Composition #57 / Pattern 29, 1938. Oil on canvas, 36 x 27 in. Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, The Harriet and Maurice Gregg Collection of American Abstract Art, 2019.42.

Transcending Landscapes

New Mexico painters formed the genre

THE TRAVELLING EXHIBITION ANOTHER WORLD: THE TRANSCENDENTAL PAINTING GROUP FEATURES APPROXIMATELY 90 WORKS. Seven works plus a series of watercolor/ gouache come from the Albuquerque Museum permanent collection. Organized by the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento, this major exhibition of a New Mexico-based art movement comes to Albuquerque first, and then travels to Tulsa, New York, Sacramento, and Los Angeles.

The Transcendental Painting Group (TPG), formed in 1938, transformed the dramatic natural surroundings of the Southwest into luminous reflections of the human spirit. Under the guidance of New Mexico painters Raymond Jonson and Emil Bisttram, artists Agnes Pelton, Lawren Harris, Florence Miller Pierce, Horace Pierce, Robert Gribbroek, William Lumpkins, Dane Rudhyar, Stuart Walker,

Lawren Harris (Canadian, 1885–1970), Abstract Painting, No. 95, 1939. Oil on canvas, 56 x 46 1/2 in. Collection of Georgia and Michael de Havenon, New York.

ON VIEW

ANOTHER WORLD: THE TRANSCENDENTAL PAINTING GROUP

Through September 26

and Ed Garman issued a manifesto stating their purpose: “To carry painting beyond the appearance of the physical world, through new concepts of space, color, light, and design, to imaginative realms that are idealistic and spiritual.”

The TPG was part of the second wave of Modernism that arrived in the United States in the 1930s, driven in part by artists who came from Europe during the pre-WWII political upheaval. Wassily Kandinsky and Piet Mondrian, in particular, influenced the TPG artists, who developed diverse styles that went beyond the landscape paintings of the Taos Moderns into a more spiritual realm. One of the group’s aims was to arrange exhibitions for this body of work: “The goal is to make known the nature of transcending painting which, developed in its various phases, will serve to widen the horizon of art.” The group found some short-lived success in carrying out its goal, mounting shows at the 1939 World’s Fair, the Golden Gate International Exhibition, and at the Museum of Non-Objective Painting (now the Guggenheim).

However, the onset of World War II caused the group to disband by the early 1940s. Individually, the painters in the TPG carried on, but were not shown as a group again until a gallerist named Martin Diamond discovered Raymond Jonson in Albuquerque in 1979 and began exploring other artists who had shown with Jonson. In 1981, Diamond contacted James Moore, then-director of the Albuquerque Museum, to show the works. That exhibition took place in 1982. The Albuquerque Museum has a number of works by members of the TPG, some of which were acquired during this period.

The Crocker’s interest in organizing Another World stems from the number of TPG artists with who lived in California and the American West. “Though there were no TPG artists with Sacramento connections, many of the TPG had strong connections—or at times lived in— California,” says Scott Shields, associate director and chief curator of the Crocker. Notably, the Crocker has a number of works by Agnes Pelton, one of two women members of the TPG. Pelton lived briefly in Taos, invited there by Mabel Dodge Luhan, patron and catalyst for the movement that would become the Taos Moderns. Luhan helped fund the Armory show in New York, where she discovered Pelton and invited her to New Mexico. She didn’t stay long, though, moving instead to California for much of her career.

Why curate an exhibition about this group of painters? Shields says the times seem to call for a re-examination of these works and their nod to theosophy. “The art is exquisite and so thoughtfully created, it seemed to be the right moment for art seeking transcendence from earthly realms,” Shields says.

AT THE MUSEUM STORE “ANOTHER WORLD: THE TRANSCENDENTAL PAINTING GROUP”

Abstract painting meets spirituality in 1930s New Mexico: the first book on a radical, astonishingly prescient episode in American modernism Edited with text by Michael Duncan. Text by Scott Shields, MaLin Wilson Powell, Catherine Whitney, Ilene Susan Fort, Dane Rudhyar.

Emil Bisttram (American, born Romania, 1895–1976), Creative Forces, 1936. Oil on canvas, 36 x 27 in. Private collection, Courtesy Aaron Payne Fine Art, Santa Fe.