Abstracting the Land:

Southwest Transcendentalism

November 1, 2007 - May 3, 2008

A selection of curated artwork from the permanent collection focuses on painters working in New Mexico in the 1930s called the Transcendental Painting Group. This historic group established themselves as artists who strove to define their art beyond the traditions of landscape, still life, and figurative imagery. The artwork selected for this exhibition exemplifies these artists’ explorations of the southwestern landscape, expressions of the sublime, and a universal shared sense of values in the human experience. The group’s founding manifesto states the group’s intention 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."