Published on the occasion of the exhibition of the same name organized by Phoenix Art Museum, March 9th-September 8th, 2019, New Mexico Museum of Art, Santa Fe, October 3rd, 2019-January 5th, 2020, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, March 13th-June 28th, 2020, and Palm Springs Art Museum, Palm Springs, August 1st-November 29th, 2020.

Includes bibliographical references.

'Agnes Pelton: Desert Transcendentalist' will be the first survey of this under recognized American painter in over 22 years. Her distinctive paintings could be described as metaphysical landscapes rooted in the California desert near Cathedral City. Pelton chiefly drew on her own inspirations, superstitions and beliefs to exemplify emotional states. The publication seeks to clarify the artist's significance and role within the cannon of American Modernism but also against the legacy of European abstraction. It contextualizes her work against her contemporaries, Marsden Hartley and Georgia O'Keeffe, and their distinct versions of American spiritual modernism. Pelton's highly symbolic paintings were inspired by religious sources ranging from Theosophy and Agni Yoga to the spiritual teachings of Dane Rudhyar and Will Levington Comfort.