AGNES PELTON

Agnes Pelton (American, 1886 – 1961), Passion Flower, ca. 1945

A mysterious passion flower hovers flat on the picture plane, its curving, disconnected tendrils seeming to float in space. Radiating light from within, this flower confronts you directly, as if imbued with some kind of consciousness. Agnes Pelton, the mystical modernist artist who painted this flower, relocated at the age of fifty from Long Island to Cathedral City in the Coachella Valley near Palm Springs. For the next thirty years, she painted images of natural abstractions and landscapes, inspired by the sparse beauty and bright, dry heat of the desert surrounding her home. A founding member of the Transcendental Painting Group, Pelton became known for her bold, colorful visions of nature, which are infused with spiritualism and esoteric symbolism.