Agnes Pelton
1881–1961
Agnes Pelton was among the generation of American modernists in the first decades of the twentieth century who rejected realism in favor of portraying their inner emotional states. Her formative training at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, under the art educator Arthur Wesley Dow, instilled in her a lifelong appreciation for the importance of abstract relationships and Japanese aesthetic traditions, in particular the balancing of large asymmetrical areas of black and white (nōtan, as it was called in Japanese). In her first years as a painter she affiliated with members of the Introspectives group, who used traditional, classical forms to convey romantic, mystical ideas. Two of her “imaginative paintings” in this mode, using single female figures in shallow landscape settings to portray nature’s quiet harmonies, were included in the 1913 Armory Show.
By 1926 Pelton’s desire to paint “the without seen from within,” as she called it, led her to abstraction. For the rest of her life she used the curvilinear, biomorphic shapes of nature to depict the unseen order she believed existed in the world. Ahmi in Egypt (1931), with its fairytale imagery and fantastic elements, is among the most narrative of her abstractions, suggesting a processional journey from right to left on a blood-red river that metaphorically ferries viewers from dark void into the light of transcendence and enlightened truth. In the mid-1930s Pelton became aligned with a group of younger abstract painters in New Mexico dedicated to portraying the realm of spiritual awareness. Throughout her career she remained committed to producing depictions of what she called the “inside” of experience.
Introduction
Agnes Lawrence Pelton (August 22, 1881 – March 13, 1961) was a modernist painter who was born in Germany and moved to the United States as a child. She studied art in the United States and Europe. She made portraits of Pueblo Native Americans, desert landscapes and still lifes. Pelton's work evolved through at least three distinct themes: her early "Imaginative Paintings," art of the American Southwest people and landscape, and abstract art that reflected her spiritual beliefs. She was a first cousin of American sculptor Laura Gardin Fraser.
Wikidata identifier
Q4693071
Information from Wikipedia, made available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License . Accessed May 24, 2025.
Country of birth
Germany
Roles
Artist, painter
ULAN identifier
500024938
Names
Agnes Pelton
Information from the Getty Research Institute's Union List of Artist Names ® (ULAN), made available under the ODC Attribution License. Accessed May 24, 2025.
