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Another World: The Transcendental Painting Group
Abstract painting meets theosophical spirituality in 1930s New the first book on a radical, astonishingly prescient episode in American modernism
Published with Crocker Art Museum.
Founded in Santa Fe and Taos, New Mexico, in 1938, at a time when social realism reigned in American art, the Transcendental Painting Group (TPG) sought to promote abstract art that pursued enlightenment and spiritual illumination. The nine original members of the Transcendental Painting Group were Emil Bisttram, Robert Gribbroek, Lawren Harris, Raymond Jonson, William Lumpkins, Florence Miller Pierce, Agnes Pelton, Horace Towner Pierce and Stuart Walker. They were later joined by Ed Garman. Despite the quality of their works, these Southwest artists have been neglected in most surveys of American art, their paintings rarely exhibited outside of New Mexico. Faced with the double disadvantage of being an openly spiritual movement from the wrong side of the Mississippi, the TPG has remained a secret mostly known only to cognoscenti.
Another The Transcendental Painting Group aims to address this slight, claiming the group’s artists as crucial contributors to an alternative through-line in 20th-century abstraction, one with renewed relevance today. This volume provides a broad perspective on the group’s work, positioning it within the history of modern painting and 20th-century American art. Essays examine the TPG in light of their international artistic peers; their involvement with esoteric thought and Theosophy; the group’s sources in the culture and landscape of the American Southwest; and the experience of its two female members.
Published with Crocker Art Museum.
Founded in Santa Fe and Taos, New Mexico, in 1938, at a time when social realism reigned in American art, the Transcendental Painting Group (TPG) sought to promote abstract art that pursued enlightenment and spiritual illumination. The nine original members of the Transcendental Painting Group were Emil Bisttram, Robert Gribbroek, Lawren Harris, Raymond Jonson, William Lumpkins, Florence Miller Pierce, Agnes Pelton, Horace Towner Pierce and Stuart Walker. They were later joined by Ed Garman. Despite the quality of their works, these Southwest artists have been neglected in most surveys of American art, their paintings rarely exhibited outside of New Mexico. Faced with the double disadvantage of being an openly spiritual movement from the wrong side of the Mississippi, the TPG has remained a secret mostly known only to cognoscenti.
Another The Transcendental Painting Group aims to address this slight, claiming the group’s artists as crucial contributors to an alternative through-line in 20th-century abstraction, one with renewed relevance today. This volume provides a broad perspective on the group’s work, positioning it within the history of modern painting and 20th-century American art. Essays examine the TPG in light of their international artistic peers; their involvement with esoteric thought and Theosophy; the group’s sources in the culture and landscape of the American Southwest; and the experience of its two female members.
239 pages, Hardcover
Published July 6, 2021
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
June 29, 2023
This is a fascinating study that sheds light not just on an obscure art movement but on the relationships between different, seemingly disparate, trends in nineteenth and twentieth century thought. Many of the members of the Transcendental Painting Group, founded by Romanian expat Emil Bisttram, were inspired by Theosophy, an esoteric spiritual movement that came to the US by way of pre-revolutionary Russia. Theosophy took inspiration from many sources, both western and eastern, but at its heart was the conviction that the perceived world was a kind of shadow (or shadows) of something far more real and eternal. Theosophy, in other words, was deeply Platonic.
The painters of the Transcendental Group took inspiration both from Theosophy and their New Mexico habitat. Forms and colors reminiscent of the desserts of the southwestern United States take geometric shapes that suggest a spiritual realm, only momentarily suggested by the natural world, that is characterized by a perfect, harmonic order.
The canonical works these paintings most resemble are unmistakably those of the revolutionary Russian artist Wassily Kandinsky, who ascribed to both Marxism-Leninism and Theosophy. I had always taken the geometric aspect of Kandinsky’s “Suprematism” as a symptom of the Soviet avant-garde’s fetishization of technological modernity, as if these ostensibly abstract works suggested a futuristic, mechanized utopia. (The quasi-ironic similarities between the early twentieth-century Soviet and American avant-gardes, especially the school known as Precisionism, has, of course, been well documented.)
After seeing this exhibit I wonder if the similarities in the art worlds of what would become the two great enemy camps wasn’t at least as much a result of the popularity of Neo-Platonic thinking, most specifically its Theosophic variation, in both Russia and the USA as it was a fetishization of the mechanical. If so, this would help explain the unfortunate metaphysical idealism and striving for “perfect order” that haunted communist regimes from the Bolsheviks onward. One can see ostensibly materialist Marxism haunted by idealism even in its most contemporary manifestations, such as the philosophy of the Neo-Platonic Post-Marxist Alain Badiou.
The painters of the Transcendental Group took inspiration both from Theosophy and their New Mexico habitat. Forms and colors reminiscent of the desserts of the southwestern United States take geometric shapes that suggest a spiritual realm, only momentarily suggested by the natural world, that is characterized by a perfect, harmonic order.
The canonical works these paintings most resemble are unmistakably those of the revolutionary Russian artist Wassily Kandinsky, who ascribed to both Marxism-Leninism and Theosophy. I had always taken the geometric aspect of Kandinsky’s “Suprematism” as a symptom of the Soviet avant-garde’s fetishization of technological modernity, as if these ostensibly abstract works suggested a futuristic, mechanized utopia. (The quasi-ironic similarities between the early twentieth-century Soviet and American avant-gardes, especially the school known as Precisionism, has, of course, been well documented.)
After seeing this exhibit I wonder if the similarities in the art worlds of what would become the two great enemy camps wasn’t at least as much a result of the popularity of Neo-Platonic thinking, most specifically its Theosophic variation, in both Russia and the USA as it was a fetishization of the mechanical. If so, this would help explain the unfortunate metaphysical idealism and striving for “perfect order” that haunted communist regimes from the Bolsheviks onward. One can see ostensibly materialist Marxism haunted by idealism even in its most contemporary manifestations, such as the philosophy of the Neo-Platonic Post-Marxist Alain Badiou.
August 8, 2024
I enjoyed reading about one my favorite art movements. My absolute favorite artist of the movement is Agnes Pelton. It took me a while to finish it but it allowed me to savor the reading and photos.
April 18, 2026
So damn hard to find it but it was so worth it!
September 8, 2025
As an introvert, I’ve for the most part been able to avoid the fear of missing out, (or FOMO as it goes for all you acronym fans), even amidst the steady barrage of capitalist social media that seems to want us to believe it’s always better elsewhere. But once in a while an event occurs which has the makings of being actually more enjoyable than my alone time. Though it’s not always comfortable to be filled with longing, it does result in a transcending of the ego.
I genuinely wish I could have gone to the Another World exhibit in LA that inspired this book. I’ve done my best to track down specific pieces to view in their museums in a sort of scavenger hunt, appreciating each individual painting and this book as much as possible. And there is a bright side- reading the book has the advantage of time. it’s actually kind of nice to read through the descriptions next to the paintings as one reads a book. In a museum one can only spend so much time with each painting and description, but in the book one can take as long as one wants in the comfort of one’s home. There is still a lingering longing, a sort of divine jealousy of not being able to attend the museum show, but this is all the more motivating to cherish the art and even more the descriptions/essays in the book.
The works in the book and the previous Another World show are by the Transcendental Painting Group, or the TPG. This is a group of artists in the 1930s (including Dane Rudhyar!) who collectively brought metaphysical concepts into their art. They were primarily inspired by the landscape of New Mexico.
This brings us to the title of this book:
“Another World” which suggests the idea of a “New World” and goes back to the discovery of America. but it is more than just land or landscape like New Mexico, it’s new art and ideas. And though the new land of the americas facilitates the new ideas, it is not the end result or object of the Transcendental Painting Group. The point is the transcending of the material realm.
Let’s nerd out etymologically with the word transcend. trans means through, scendere means to climb.
The exploration, or climbing through of new land encourages the transcending of that new land through new ideas and forms.
Rudhyar writes “the word “transcendental” is used to qualify the constant process of change and inherent self transformation by which any living whole tends perpetually to overcome its boundaries and to translate the focus of its life awareness and the center of its outgoing impulses for self-expression to a higher level” (p. 216)
I’ve written in a previous review about how in this day and age only a select few are allowed to be artists, and admittedly it might have sounded like I was sorting out my own issues in the review. This idea of transcendence confirms this idea that art and participation can be connected for any individual, as transcendence can be found anywhere a limiting background or limitation has been overcome.
The new, transcendent world then becomes the inner psycho spiritual world seen from an elevated vantage point, which is found whenever boundaries external or internal are surmounted, but still maintaining a center of focus which includes understanding of past boundaries in one’s awareness.
This process of inner transcendence is generally difficult to capture or force. In this day and age we can study the brain and mind through scanners and tests, but it’s relatively limited in capturing the spirit world. What we can do, and what I’ve been trying to do with studying Dane Rudhyar in what may seem like an obsessive amount, is follow in the footsteps of those who have shown transcendence, and attempt to show our perspective from their vista and maybe even go a step further. The TPG artists offer opportunities in their art that encourage transcendence in the viewer who follows in their footsteps. For instance, in TPG artist’s Agnes Pelton’s explorations,
“the pictures are like little windows, opening to the view of a region not yet much visited consciously or by intention- an inner realm, rather than an outer landscape.”(p.204)
The subject is the inner landscape, but it is facilitated through Pelton’s experience of the outer landscape, as the outer new world leads to the inner new world.
And why is the outer “new world” of the US conducive to inner world transcendence?
Dane Rudhyar writes:
“The Americas are not the greatest continent; but today it is the continent on which the seeds of the new humanity are being sown- not perhaps the new humanity of tomorrow, but the humanity which is slowly to become conscious of its transcendental reality on the plane of mind and ideas, the plane of creative freedom, spiritual equality, and companionship of souls- a humanity, the foreseeing of which only makes life worth living in this chaotic age.” (p.222)
And those who first discovered this new world kind of predicted this possibility of transcendent reality. Another Rudhyar quote included in this book:
“The United States were an attempt to organize at a higher, more mental and universal level a pattern of harmonic, democratic living for races coming from all corners of the earth; to organize it on a continent whose tremendous spaces and natural resources made possible a complete reorganization of social relationships, from the very roots of earth-being to the very fruitions of spiritual consciousness.” (p.223)
No wonder it’s called “states” of consciousness. The vastness of the continental landscapes gives space to explore the vastness of the inner landscape. And egalitarian relationships to others follow this freedom in states of consciousness.
One more Rudhyar quote from the book:
“Today America is facing the possibility of building a civilization based on an awareness of planetary values, transfiguring provincialism into continentalism, organizing the material resources in such a way (dimly foreshadowed by the Technocracy) as to liberate man’s consciousness from dependence upon earth-conditioned labor, and opening to it the transcendental vistas of creative freedom on the plane of individual self-hood and universal symbolism.”(p.223)
The TPG and the Another World exhibit were therefore about much more than just appreciating good art. It was demonstrating the American destiny of creative freedom as the vast outer landscape offers exploration of inner spiritual realms.
There are still times where I still wish I could have gone to the Another World exhibit. But I’ve realized that this “Fomo” from the event and the transcending of the ego is what the TPG is all about. You recognize there’s something externally beyond your boundaried viewpoint, and then the change occurs internally as a response that takes its own time.
And then, unexpectedly, you realize that what was outside you seemingly beyond was inchoate within all along, waiting as “the living God who impels you forever to take the next step ahead, and thus to transcend yourself through the eternal metamorphosis of past into future within the chrysalis of the now” (p.224).
I genuinely wish I could have gone to the Another World exhibit in LA that inspired this book. I’ve done my best to track down specific pieces to view in their museums in a sort of scavenger hunt, appreciating each individual painting and this book as much as possible. And there is a bright side- reading the book has the advantage of time. it’s actually kind of nice to read through the descriptions next to the paintings as one reads a book. In a museum one can only spend so much time with each painting and description, but in the book one can take as long as one wants in the comfort of one’s home. There is still a lingering longing, a sort of divine jealousy of not being able to attend the museum show, but this is all the more motivating to cherish the art and even more the descriptions/essays in the book.
The works in the book and the previous Another World show are by the Transcendental Painting Group, or the TPG. This is a group of artists in the 1930s (including Dane Rudhyar!) who collectively brought metaphysical concepts into their art. They were primarily inspired by the landscape of New Mexico.
This brings us to the title of this book:
“Another World” which suggests the idea of a “New World” and goes back to the discovery of America. but it is more than just land or landscape like New Mexico, it’s new art and ideas. And though the new land of the americas facilitates the new ideas, it is not the end result or object of the Transcendental Painting Group. The point is the transcending of the material realm.
Let’s nerd out etymologically with the word transcend. trans means through, scendere means to climb.
The exploration, or climbing through of new land encourages the transcending of that new land through new ideas and forms.
Rudhyar writes “the word “transcendental” is used to qualify the constant process of change and inherent self transformation by which any living whole tends perpetually to overcome its boundaries and to translate the focus of its life awareness and the center of its outgoing impulses for self-expression to a higher level” (p. 216)
I’ve written in a previous review about how in this day and age only a select few are allowed to be artists, and admittedly it might have sounded like I was sorting out my own issues in the review. This idea of transcendence confirms this idea that art and participation can be connected for any individual, as transcendence can be found anywhere a limiting background or limitation has been overcome.
The new, transcendent world then becomes the inner psycho spiritual world seen from an elevated vantage point, which is found whenever boundaries external or internal are surmounted, but still maintaining a center of focus which includes understanding of past boundaries in one’s awareness.
This process of inner transcendence is generally difficult to capture or force. In this day and age we can study the brain and mind through scanners and tests, but it’s relatively limited in capturing the spirit world. What we can do, and what I’ve been trying to do with studying Dane Rudhyar in what may seem like an obsessive amount, is follow in the footsteps of those who have shown transcendence, and attempt to show our perspective from their vista and maybe even go a step further. The TPG artists offer opportunities in their art that encourage transcendence in the viewer who follows in their footsteps. For instance, in TPG artist’s Agnes Pelton’s explorations,
“the pictures are like little windows, opening to the view of a region not yet much visited consciously or by intention- an inner realm, rather than an outer landscape.”(p.204)
The subject is the inner landscape, but it is facilitated through Pelton’s experience of the outer landscape, as the outer new world leads to the inner new world.
And why is the outer “new world” of the US conducive to inner world transcendence?
Dane Rudhyar writes:
“The Americas are not the greatest continent; but today it is the continent on which the seeds of the new humanity are being sown- not perhaps the new humanity of tomorrow, but the humanity which is slowly to become conscious of its transcendental reality on the plane of mind and ideas, the plane of creative freedom, spiritual equality, and companionship of souls- a humanity, the foreseeing of which only makes life worth living in this chaotic age.” (p.222)
And those who first discovered this new world kind of predicted this possibility of transcendent reality. Another Rudhyar quote included in this book:
“The United States were an attempt to organize at a higher, more mental and universal level a pattern of harmonic, democratic living for races coming from all corners of the earth; to organize it on a continent whose tremendous spaces and natural resources made possible a complete reorganization of social relationships, from the very roots of earth-being to the very fruitions of spiritual consciousness.” (p.223)
No wonder it’s called “states” of consciousness. The vastness of the continental landscapes gives space to explore the vastness of the inner landscape. And egalitarian relationships to others follow this freedom in states of consciousness.
One more Rudhyar quote from the book:
“Today America is facing the possibility of building a civilization based on an awareness of planetary values, transfiguring provincialism into continentalism, organizing the material resources in such a way (dimly foreshadowed by the Technocracy) as to liberate man’s consciousness from dependence upon earth-conditioned labor, and opening to it the transcendental vistas of creative freedom on the plane of individual self-hood and universal symbolism.”(p.223)
The TPG and the Another World exhibit were therefore about much more than just appreciating good art. It was demonstrating the American destiny of creative freedom as the vast outer landscape offers exploration of inner spiritual realms.
There are still times where I still wish I could have gone to the Another World exhibit. But I’ve realized that this “Fomo” from the event and the transcending of the ego is what the TPG is all about. You recognize there’s something externally beyond your boundaried viewpoint, and then the change occurs internally as a response that takes its own time.
And then, unexpectedly, you realize that what was outside you seemingly beyond was inchoate within all along, waiting as “the living God who impels you forever to take the next step ahead, and thus to transcend yourself through the eternal metamorphosis of past into future within the chrysalis of the now” (p.224).
March 21, 2022
I bought this book at a museum shop after visiting the exhibit. I was amazed at the artwork. If you are like me, I had never heard of Transcendental Painting (or knew it was a NM school of art).
The book is filled with essays and does provide pretty comprehensive bios of these artists.
Again, the art is amazing.
TPG artists attempted to connect with viewers actively rather than passively, inducing a feeling of transcendence, or creating a transcendental state of being, in those who viewed their art. They did so through carefully arranged combinations of highly charged---and primarily nonobjective---forms and colors that they believed had mystical resonance. (35)
The book is filled with essays and does provide pretty comprehensive bios of these artists.
Again, the art is amazing.
January 22, 2024
Modernist mysticism expressed through abstract art. Gorgeous reproductions. Criminally unknown artists throughout.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews