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Exhibition History"Agnes Pelton, Desert Transcendentalist", Phoenix Art Museum, AZ, Mar 9 - Sep 28, 2019 (itinerary: Oct 3, 2019 - Jan 5, 2020, New Mexico Museum of Art, Santa Fe, Mar 13 - Jun 28, 2020, Whitney Museum of American Art, Aug 1 - Nov 29, 2020, Palm Springs Art Museum)

"Agnes Pelton, Poet of Nature," Palm Springs Desert Museum, CA, Feb. 28 - Apr. 30, 1995 (circulated to: Parrish Art Museum, Southampton, N. Y., Dec. 3, 1995 - Jan. 14, 1996; Montclair Museum, Montclair, NJ, July 9 - Sept. 17, 1995)

"The Louise Noun Collection of Art by Women", University of Iowa Museum of Art, March 24 - May 13, 1990; DMAC, May 25 - August 5, 1990

"Abstract Paintings by Agnes Pelton," Desert Art Center, Cathedral City, CA, 1951

"Agnes Pelton Paintings," Santa Barbara Museum of Art, CA, 1943

"Paintings by Agnes Pelton," Desert Inn Galleries, Palm Springs, 1938

"Paintings by Agnes Pelton," Desert Inn Gallery, Palm Springs, 1936

"Paintings by Agnes Pelton," San Diego Fine Arts Gallery, 1934

"An Exhibition of Paintings by Agnes Pelton, Drawings by Raymond Jonson, Watercolors by Cady Wells," Museum of New Mexico, Santa Fe, 1933

"Sixth Annual Exhibition of the San Francisco Society of Women Artists," California Palace of the Legion of Honor, 1931

"Paintings by Agnes Pelton," Argent Galleries, N. Y., 1931

Salon of America, 1930

"Abstractions by Agnes Pelton," Montross Gallery, N. Y., 1929

"Decorative Flower Paintings and Abstractions by Agnes Pelton," Grace Nicholson Art Galleries, Pasadena, 1929
Published References"Decorative Flower Paintings and Abstractions by Agnes Pelton," Grace Nicholson Art Galleries, Pasadena, 1929, exh. cat. no.10

Salon of America, 1930, exh. cat. ill. no.313
"Sixth Annual Exhibition of the San Francisco Society of Women Artists," California Palace of the Legion of Honor, 1931, exh. cat. no.47

"Paintings by Agnes Pelton," Desert Inn Galleries, Palm Springs, 1936, exh. cat. no.13, cover ill.

"Paintings by Agnes Pelton," Desert Inn Galleries, Palm Springs, 1938, exh. cat. no.11

"Agnes Pelton Paintings," Santa Barbara Museum of Art, 1943, exh. cat. no.10

"Abstract Paintings by Agnes Pelton," Desert Art Center, Cathedral City, CA, 1951, exh. cat. no.1

U of I, 1990, Conklin, ed., p.72-73 (illustration)

Michael Zakian, "Agnes Pelton, Poet of Nature," Palm Spring Desert Museum, CA, 1995, exh. cat. ill. p.51

Gilbert Vicario, ed., "Agnes Pelton, Desert Transcendentalist", Phoenix Art Museum, 2019, pp. 79, 178

WOMAN'S ART JOURNAL, Vol.18, No.1, Spring/Summer, 1997, p.66

Karen Moss, "Illumination: The Paintings of Georgia O'Keefe, Agnes Pelton, Agnes Martin, and Florence Miller Pierce", Orange County Museum of Art and Merrell, 2009, color ill. pg. 120, index pg. 183
DimensionsFrame: 27 1/2 × 22 1/2 × 1 7/8 in. (69.9 × 57.2 × 4.8 cm)
Canvas: 24 × 19 1/8 in. (61 × 48.6 cm)
Accession Number 2003.340
Classificationspainting
SignedAgnes Pelton 1928 (l,r)
Paper/Supportcanvas
ProvenanceArtist. Private Collection, CA [until 1987]; (Richard York Gallery, New York); Louise R. Noun, Des Moines [purchased from the previous, 1988]; Des Moines Art Center [bequest of the previous, 2003]

Images (1)

Photo Credit: Rich Sanders, Des Moines

Audio (1)

Audio Transcript

Agnes Pelton (American, born Germany, 1881 - 1961)
Untitled, 1928

Run Time: 2:29
Recorded by Jared Ledesma, Associate Curator / May 10, 2021

Hi there, I'm Jared Ledesma, Associate Curator and today I'm talking about Agnes Pelton. A few years ago, maybe around 2018, I came upon an article written by Christopher Knight in the LA Times and it was about Agnes Pelton and he refers to her as a lesbian. I immediately got excited because it's not common to find out-lesbian artists who lived during the early to mid 20th century. So not only is her work outstanding and beautiful but I was also very excited to find a queer artist from that period of art history. So I tried to find some type of supporting evidence, evidence of this and she was very private, she never married, she did not to our knowledge have a significant other or a partner which is unfortunate because we can't see for sure whether she was queer or not. And that's the case for many artists of the early to mid 20th century where there's this instinct that we have or a feeling or there's some evidence in their artwork that points towards LGBTQ themes or sexuality or gender but we're not quite sure. Pelton is known for a style that fuses abstract shapes and these kind of swooping forms with representational imagery, so in this case a flower that has been formed from, I love those, curving forms they are quite stunning. A lot of people compare Pelton to Georgia O'Keeffe, Pelton actually studied under some of the same teachers that Georgia O'Keeffe studied under. Our painting at the Art Center is called Ecstasy and Pelton describes it as capturing this moment when a flower, this flower, has just given off so much energy or just bursted with energy so much so that it kills itself in the process. So what we're looking at is the flower after it's died.

Ecstasy
Photo Credit: Rich Sanders, Des Moines
Photo Credit: Rich Sanders, Des Moines
Photo Credit: Rich Sanders, Des Moines
Agnes Weinrich
1920
Photo Credit: Rich Sanders, Des Moines
Agnes Martin
1974
Photo Credit: Rich Sanders, Des Moines
Agnes Martin
1958
Photo Credit: Rich Sanders, Des Moines
Agnes Weinrich
ca. 1925
Photo Credit: Rich Sanders, Des Moines
Agnes Weinrich
date unknown
Photo Credit: Rich Sanders, Des Moines
Morris Kantor
1940
Photo Credit: Richard Sanders, Des Moines
Marvin Cone
ca. 1958
Photo Credit: Michael Tropea, Chicago
David Dunlap
1987-1989