History: Desert Transcendentalist Agnes Pelton and her spiritual awakening in Cathedral City
In the depths of the Great Depression, at a time of physical insecurity and want, a small group of avantgarde artists tried to create something tru...
In the depths of the Great Depression, at a time of physical insecurity and want, a small group of avantgarde artists tried to create something truly new. Called Transcendental Painting by its adherents, the form was striving to develop non-representational paintings sourced in pure imagination, attending to the spiritual in a time of deprivation. A brochure for a group exhibition in 1939 explained, 'The word Transcendental has been chosen as a name for the group because it best expresses its aim, which is 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.