Category Archives: Nature

Georgia O’Keeffe’s Modern Living

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How do you turn a 200-year-old adobe home into a temple of mid-century modern design? See how Georgia O’Keeffe did it in Artful Living: O’Keeffe and Modern Design, an exhibition available on-line and at the GOK Museum’s Welcome Center near her home and studio in Abiquiu, New Mexico through January 31, 2026.

When Georgia bought her second New Mexico home in 1945, it was a wreck. All the better, for her to envision the possibilities of her dream house. Why was she obsessed with this? It had a home garden and irrigation, a placita in the center of the house with a working well, the iconic black door in the red wall, and an incredible view of the stunning landscape (and Pedernal).

Todd Webb’s 1962 photo Georgia O’Keeffe and Chows in Abiquiú Garden with Georgia in a striped Marimekko dress.

By collaborating for the next four years with her friend and project manager Maria Chabot, the property was transformed into a showcase for everything modern – furniture, fabrics, lamps, tableware, and (eventually) architectural innovations like skylights, gigantic picture windows, and open-plan living.  To keep her creative sparks going, Georgia never stopped rearranging, adding, and switching things up.

The exhibition space is small, but provides a tight curated selection of Georgia’s things accompanied by great photos of her interiors over time.

Balthazar Korab’s 1965 photo Abiquiú House, Indian Room with Noguchi lamp and Eames chair.
1960s Akari Lantern, a gift from sculptor and designer Isamu Noguchi with Krysta Jabczenski’s 2019 photo of her living room arranged as she left it in 1984.

The furniture is front and center, made by a who’s who of American 20th century designers.  After all, as one of the recognized greats of modern American painting, the designers were often her friends, too. Simple, clean, modern lines – that’s what Georgia liked. But she loved design innovations, too.

No wonder she was captivated by the innovative BFK (“Butterfly”) chair designed by a trio of Argentine architects in 1938. She ordered one from Knoll, used it on her patio, and sometimes took the cover off just to admire the frame. And she bought several LCW chairs by her friends, Charles and Ray Eames – the molded-plywood marvel that defined a design decade.

1940s LCW Plywood Lounge Side Chair designed by Charles and Ray Eames for Herman Miller – the first chair in the Eames’ molded plywood series.
Don Worth’s 1958 photo Georgia O’Keeffe with Chair with 1938 metal and cotton Butterfly Chair for Knoll Associates.

But perhaps her most-used piece was the versatile BARWA Lounger – perfect for laying back and listening to classical music or looking at the stars during a summer camping trip to the badlands. The aluminum frame made it light enough to strap to the top of her car.

1940s BARWA Lounger designed by Edgar Bartolucci and John Waldheim of BARWA Associates; Georgia relaxed here while listening to classical music.

Of course, Georgia loved her rock and bone collections, but she also collected practical items for her home that epitomized mid-century design.  Why not select a Finnish design innovation that you could adjust to get the light just right on your work desk or still life? Or use a sleek, modern, see-through coffee maker to prepare your morning cup of Bustelo? Pure bliss.

Finnish design: 1960s metal Luxo Lamp designed by Jac Jacobsen.
Everyday modern design: 1950s Chemex coffee maker designed by Peter Schlumbohm for Chemex.

The curators also want us to remember that modern design principles also extended to Georgia’s dress preferences.

Three cool cotton dresses by Anika Ramala for Marimekko – 1963-1965 Varjo dress, 1961 Karutakkj dress, and 1963 Asumistakki dress.

When she wasn’t posing for the most famous photographers against the red rocks of New Mexico in her black hat and wrap dress, she preferred wearing loose-fitting Marimekko dresses.   A working studio artist could really move in them to prepare canvases, rehang paintings around the house, or carry around stuff in the pockets. Never mind that the dresses from the popular Finnish design house were marketed as the finishing sartorial touch for any modern Sixties interior.

Feel free to revisit our past blog post about the wildly successful traveling exhibition about Georgia’s fashions here.

See some of our favorite photos, furniture, and items in our Flickr album.

Two of her best friends and travel buddies were Alexander and Susan Girard. Georgia always welcomed the small textiles that Alexander Girard gifted her. Although she never adopted his revolutionary conversation-pit seating, she did get out the sewing notions and turn his iconic designs into small throw pillows placed lovingly (and colorfully) throughout her house. She also covered her kitchen work surfaces in Marimekko oil cloth to make it pop, too.

Visit this fantastic design exhibition on line here, and read more about each of Georgia’s mid-century modern choices.

For more, listen to Giustina Renzoni, the museum’s curator of historic properties, discuss how Georgia turned her modern sensibilities into a legendary high desert home:

And if you’re really interested in what Georgia had in her closet, the next time you’re in New Mexico, sign up for that new extra-special tour!

Video still of Georgia O’Keeffe’s Abiquiú home and her philosophy about home design

Contemporary Art Extravaganza Provides Time-Travel Portals

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The scale and scope of the contemporary art on display is tremendous, but how often do art-seekers also get an opportunity to travel across ancient streets and landscapes, to meet real and fictional historic characters, contemplate fables and real-life stories, and see art of the past and present side by side?

It can take days to experience and fully absorb all of the history and potential futues presented in the films, paintings, sculptures, and installations in Once Within a Time: 12th SITE Santa Fe International, on view across 15 art spaces across Santa Fe through January 12, 2026.

Exhibition banner in the courtyard of Palace of the Governors (1610) (New Mexico History Museum) – gateway to SITE installations by Daisy Quezada Ureña (Santa Fe) and Charisse Perlina Weston. (Harlem, New York)

Besides the expansive white galleries and screening rooms of SITE’s museum in Santa Fe’s always-popping Railyard District, visitors can choose to contemplate giant abstract murals in a church-like auditorium, an innovative historical-object installation in a 400-year-old seat of power, or enter an old foundry to see an evocative installation by a Silk Road artist across farm fields adjacent to the Old Spanish Trail.

SITE Santa Fe gallery theme: appears like real life and sensual free-thinkers. 2025 mixed-media sculpture “18-1-4-5-7-21-14-4” by Patricia Ayres; copper work by Santiago de Paoli; Katja Sieb’s 2025 “perpetual novice” painting; and 2020 grid painting “Atlas” by Penny Siopis (South Africa).
SITE Santa Fe gallery theme: in touch with light (spiritual) – Agnes Pelton’s paintings (1930s), Maja Ruznic’s mural (2025), and the 1895 healing rod of itinerant Southwestern mystic Francis Schlatter. Courtesy: Phoeix Art Museum; New Mexico Museum of Art; Oakland Museum of California; Maja Ruznic and Karma Gallery; and New Mexico History Museum.

In every space and art encounter, visitors may reflect upon whether history is repeating itself and whether inspiration can be drawn from futures that artists imagined nearly a century ago. Each space is designed for visitors to look, read, encounter, and reflect.

In the old foundry at Tesuque: 2024 video As We Fade by Saodat Ismailova (Uzbeckistan), showing visitors to one of Central Asia’s most sacred sites (Throne of Solomon) along the ancient Silk Road; projected across 24 suspended silk screens. Courtesy: the artist and Milan’s Pirelli HangarBicocca.

The theme for the show – Once Within a Time – is inspired by Godfrey Reggio’s most recent film – a suggestive and wordless mix of innocence, nostalgic images, visual poetry, and the future facing the next generation. The film screens continuously inside SITE, with visitors caught up in Godfrey’s dream-like images, which highlighted in this mesmerizing movie trailer:

Like Godfrey’s film, each space and gallery presents a theme, story, historic character, and provocative contemporary art that pulls back in time, creates an unforgettable experience, and asks the viewer to go inward to contemplate the future. 

Joanna Keane Lopez’s 2024 Batter my heart, three person’d God – adobe, a handmade bed, colcha embroidery showing a radiation cloud, and creosote bush, referencing her family’s experience of living downwind of the Trinity detonation.

SITE’s galleries, for example, present themes such as storytelling, technology and language, the power of spiritual energy, and New Mexico’s undeniable status as a natural Land of Enchantment.  

The exhibition presents traditional New Mexico superstars and inspirations –  Awa Tsireh and Helen Cordero (San Ildefonso Pueblo), Agnes Pelton, Rebecca Salsbury James, Florence Miller Pierce, Pop Chalee (Taos), Pablita Velarde (Santa Clara Pueblo), and Eliot Porter – alongside artists who are breaking through on the international stage.

Cochiti pueblo ceramicist Helen Cordero’s storyteller figures are paired with Pablita Velardi’s storyteller illustrations (both are inspired by grandfathers and fathers) and Simone Leigh’s epic stone and raffia goddesses.

SITE Santa Fe gallery theme: storytelling. Simone Leigh’s 2025 untiled stoneware and raffia sculpture. At rear, 2025 oil The Solemn and Dignified Burial Befitting My Beloved for All Seasons by Dominique Knowles. Courtesy: Matthew Marks Gallery; the artist and Hannah Hoffman Gallery, Los Angeles.
Gallery theme: storytelling. Helen Cordero’s 1970 painted clay Storyteller – the creator of the Cochiti Pueblo sculptural tradition, inspired by her grandfather’s stories; championed by patron Alexander Girard. Courtesy: School for Advanced Research.
SITE Santa Fe gallery theme: language Marilou Schultz’s 2024 weaving Integrated Circuit Chip & AI Diné Weaving – a reference to the controvercial 1970s Fairchild Semiconductor chip plant on Navajo Nation staffed primarily with Diné women. Courtesy: private foundation.

The story of the legendary WWII heroes, the Navajo Code Talkers, is featured in a gallery alongside Marilou Schultz’s weavings of chip technology using traditional Diné methods with Fred Hammersly’s ground-breaking IBM computer drawings at the University of New Mexico in 1968-1970. 

Fred was given an opportunity to create the first mainframe-generated art in the form of drawings programmed by traditional IBM punch-card technology and the Art1 program.  SIITE not only displays a selection of the 400 computer drawings that he generated over the course of 18 months, but some of the punch cards he used, which are now archived at the Smithsonian’s Archives of American Art.

Sensual free-thinkers are represented by the story of Santa Fe gambling mogul Doña Tules (Maria Gertrudis Barceló) and her actual 1840s money chest, witty contemporary porcelain playing cards and magical paintings by Katja Seib (UK), and jaw-dropping drawings by Shanghai’s Zhang Yunyao.

SITE Santa Fe gallery theme: sensual free-thinkers. Two of three 2025 Connector drawings by Zhang Yunyao (Shanghai); pencil on stretched felt. Courtesy: the artist, Don Gallery.

Around the corner from Agnes Pelton’s transcendental paintings are Diego Medina’s landscapes reflecting the Piro-Mansa-Tiwa spiritual power inhabiting ancestral lands of Southern New Mexico and also installations about a different type of New Mexico light – the impact of the nuclear energy tests on people living downwind and the legacy of uranium mining across native lands.

SITE Santa Fe gallery theme:In touch with light (nuclear energy): Will Wilson’s 2025 series Hubris on the Land – aerial photography of abandoned 1940s uranium mines on Navajo Nation paired with his documentation of Land Art sites created by Holt, Smithson, Heiser, and Turrell in the 1960s-1970s. Courtesy: the artist

New Mexico’s natural world is paid tribute in stories and artwork by travelers and residents – watercolors of Pueblo spirits and wildlife by Awa Tsireh (Alfonso Roybal) in the 1930s, Vladimir Nabokov’s sketches of butterfly wing cells (1940s-1950s), and Eliot Porter’s spectacular photos of Tesuque jays in the 1960s.

But these examples are just snippets of Once Within a Time – the entire show deserves multiple visits, and time to visit the other locations in the city, such as the hidden basement natural wonderland epic at the Museum of Internatonal Folk Art created by Taiwan ‘s Zhang Xu Zhan. It’s not only an immersive environment, but a film, animal-spirit sculptures, and selections from the MoIFA’s paper funerary object collection.  Don’t miss the Day of the Dead altar, the 18th-century Pere Lachaise Cemetary tribute initially collected by Mr. Girard himself, and paper funerary fantasies made by the artist’s own family. Truly unforgettable.

Museum of International Folk Art: Zhang Xu Zhan’s 2020-2022 paper-animation video Compound Eyes of Tropical (Animal story series), with a Southeastern Asian deer-mouse outwitting a group of predatory crocodiles. Courtesy: the artist and Project Fulfill Art Space, Taiwan.

The Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian fills the Klah Gallery (in the shape of a traditional hogan) with a meditation on healing by Cristina Flores Pescorán, a wild organic sculpture by Nora Naranjo Morse, and a mini-retrospective of paintings by the incomparable Emmi Whitehorse.

Wheelwright Klah Gallery theme: journeys. Nora Naranjo Morse’s sculpture Into the Forever; on walls, Cristina Flores Pescorán’s 2025 installation Treinta y ocho. Ofrendas para reescribir historia medica y renacer Huaca. Courtesy: the artists

The Tesuque location also features rooms with installations by Mexico’s Guillermo Galindo incorporating burned wood from the recent New Mexico fires (crossed with Picasso’s Guernica),  David Horvitz’s tribute to the men incarcerated in Santa Fe’s Japanese internment camp (and a hat from one them), and Thailand’s Korakrit Arunanondchai’s room-sized contemplation that incorporates the ashes from the burning of Zozobra.

Video of Korakrit Arunanondchai’s 2025 installation Unity for Nostalgia, with floor incorporating ashes from Santa Fe’s Zozobra’s burning and a prayer to the phoenix; layered soundtrack. Courtesy: the artist, Bangkok City Gallery, London’s Carlos/Ishikawa, CLEARNING NY-LA, Kukje Gallery, Seoul
Video of Max Hooper Schneider’s 2025 Written in Sand (Finquita Garden) installation; spheres mysteriously travel sand channels. Courtesy: the artist; Maureen Paley, London, Hove; Francois Ghebaley, Los Angeles, New York.

For more, take a walk through the main exhibit and five other sites in and around Santa in our Flickr album to see work by legendary New Mexican artists, and travel back and forth to see how contemporary art reflects epic histories and mystic systems of the Southwest.

View of historic St. Francis Auditorium (1917) with Maja Ruznic’s 2025 Kisa Pada, Trava Raste, Gora Zeleni installed atop Donald Beauregad’s painting The Conversion of St. Francis; to right, Beauregard’s The Renunciation of Santa Clara.

Sea Dragons of Nevada Brought to Life

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Most fossil fans are familiar with the spectacular Jurassic marine reptiles found by Mary Anning along England’s Dorset Coast in the early 1800s, but few are aware that their predecessors – gigantic Triassic ichthyosaurs (250-201 mya)– have been emerging from the central mountains of Nevada’s Great Basin for the last 125 years.

A beautiful exhibition – Deep Time: Sea Dragons in Nevada – shines a spotlight on these magnificent extinct creatures, brings them to life through life-size animations, and tells stories of scientific discoveries at the Nevada Museum of Art in Reno through January 11, 2026.

Life-sized digital animation of swimming ichthyosaur by artist Ivan Cruz, paleontologist Martin Sander, and exhibition designer Nik Hafermaas.

The art museum reunites the state’s stunning Triassic marine reptiles from museum collections across North America, and couples this with an engaging walk through 200 years of paleo-art history starring these enigmatic Mesozoic “sea dragons.”

Triassic ichthyosaur (Cymbospondylus) (245 mya) discovered in Nevada’s Humboldt Range in 1905 by John Merriam and Annie Alexander. Courtesy: UC-Berkeley Museum of Paleontology
Reproduction of Frederick Rolle ‘s illustration Geology and Paleontology: Landscape of Europe in the Jurassic Era from Gotthilf Heinrich von Schubert’s 1887 Natural History.

The most dramatic spectacle is on the far wall – a life-sized animated recreation of these gigantic swimming creatures by artist Ivan Cruz in collaboration with paleontologist Martin Sander and exhibition designer Nik Hafermaas. From the inky blackness, thousands of points of light emerge, float across the long wall, and coalesce into 3-D sea creatures that appear to swim across the entire length of the room.

Digital animation of swimming ichthyosaurs by artist Ivan Cruz, paleontologist Martin Sander, and exhibition designer Nik Hafermaas.

Take a close-up look at the gorgeous Deep Time exhibition design and ichthyosaur animations by Hafermaas°creative here.

History, adventure, art, and expeditions intertwine. The gallery tells the story of ichythyosaur discoveries across three Nevada mountain ranges – the Humboldt, Shoshone, and Augusta. Each section presents spectacular ichthyosaur fossils and along with tales of intrepid paleontologists who have toiled away in Nevada’s most remote regions for over a century.

Paleontologist and philanthropist Annie Alexander’s Kodak field camera and boots; excavated 25 ichthyosaur fossils with UC-Berkeley 1905 Saurian expedition. Courtesy: UC-Berkeley Bancroft Library and Museum of Vertebrate Paleontolgy Archives.

Nevada’s “sea dragon” story begins in the Humboldt Range in 1867-1868 as the U.S. Geological Exploration of the Fortieth Parallel, led by Charles King, discovers and collects bits and pieces of ichthyosaur ribs and vertebrae in their survey of the Great Basin. These discoveries spawned national news stories. The fossils ended up in Harvard’s museum collection, so it’s nice to see them here.

Paleontologist Annie Alexander’s field notes and photographs in scrapbook of the UC-Berkeley 1905 Saurian expedition to Nevada’s Humboldt’s Range, where she discovered and excavated 25 ichthyosaur fossils. Courtesy: UC-Berkeley Museum of Paleontolgy.

1905 was a big year for Triassic discoveries in the Humboldt Range.  James Perrin Smith and his team from Stanford collected dozens of ammonites from the Humboldt slopes, and philanthropist Annie Alexander bankrolled (and participated in) John Merriam’s UC-Berkeley Saurian expedition.

Merriam’s team excavated 25 ichythyosaur skeletons, loaded them out by horse-pulled wagons, and then got them back to Berkeley via train.  Annie’s field notebook and photo scrapbook give us a look at the fossils, camp, and the team. In 1907, Annie founded and funded the UC-Berkeley Museum of Vertebrate Zoology. Her subsequent field trips led her to collecting more than Triassic fossils, but Annie’s the one to thank for kicking off spectacular preservation efforts for Nevada’s marine-reptile riches.

And as most fossil hunters know, discoveries are often made inside the collections storage room.  It’s nice to see one of Annie’s 1905 fossils redefined as a new ichythyosaur species in the 21st century by exhibition co-curator paleontologist Martin Sanders!

Found in the Humboldt Range: 245-million-year-old Triassic ichthyosaur skull discovered in 1905; Nicole Klein and Martin Sander have recently reclassified “slender snout” as a new species. Courtesy: UC-Berkeley Museum of Paleontology

The story moves to the Shoshone Mountains near the old silver mining town of Berlin.  In 1928, paleontologist Siemon Muller came across a massive amount of ichthyosaur remains encased in super-hard limestone near Berlin.  Although he told the paleontologists at UC-Berkeley about them, no one followed up until Charles Camp went out to take a look in 1953. He found huge, articulated skeletons that were younger in age than the fossils from Humboldt.

In the Shoshone Mountains: 1954 photo of Charles Camp excavating fossils at the site that will become Berlin-Ichthyosaur State Park; Camp’s book Earth Song. Courtesy: University of California Museum of Paleontology; Nevada Museum of Art.
From the Shoshone Mountains: Digital print of front flipper of 228-million-year-old Triassic ichthyosaur (Shonisaurus) discovered in the 1950s by Charles Camp. Courtesy: Nevada State Museum; scan by Alyson Wilkins, Tyler Birthisel, and Randy Irmis. 

Over the next ten years, Camp and his team found and sand-blasted out remains of 40 Triassic ichythyosaurs, which he later named Shonisaurus. In one quarry, the skeletons were so complete and numerous that Camp decided just to uncover their them and leave them exposed in place. People heard about these unique finds from news reports, and came out to marvel for themselves.

By 1957, the site was named a Nevada state park – a place where visitors could large concentrations of the world’s largest ichthyosaurs. Over time, Camp opened ten separate quarries in the area. The fossils Camp removed are now held in the Nevada State Museum in Las Vegas.

For the last ten years, palentologists Randy Irmis and Neal Patrick Kelly have been working in the same area. The exhibition includes their recent ichthyosaur discoveries, including baby Shonisaurus bones, teeth, and a snount containing tooth sockets – evidence that the animal was likely a formidable predator.

Watch their video here for a history of ichthyosaur collecting in Nevada, a digital model of Camp’s main quarry, and new fossils

From the Shoshone Mountains: Tooth sockets in snout fragment of a 228-million-year-old Triassic ichthyosaur (Shonisaurus) discovered in 2015 by Randy Irmis, Neal Patrick Kelly, Paula Noble, and Paige dePolo. Courtesy: Natural History Museum of Utah, US Forest Service, and Nevada State Parks. 

The Augusta Mountains has been the site of field work by Martin Sanders and team for nearly 30 years – – old and new ichthyosaur species, which are on display.

Fossilized sea floor with 242-million-year-old Triassic ichythyosaur (Phalarodon) and ammonites; found in 1996 by Martin Sander and Glenn Storrs in Nevada’s Augusta Mountains. Courtesy: Cincinnati Museum/BLM
From the Augusta Mountains: Skull of 243-million-year-old Triassic ichthyosaur (Cymbospondylus) discovered in the 2011 by Martin Sander (excavated 2014). Courtesy: Natural History Museums of Los Angeles County; BLM.

The exhibition includes a whimsical corridor leading to images from 19th-century paleo art and to vintage toys from a dinosaur and prehistoric-animal collector. The final room is a kaleidoscope of nostalgia – images from Europe’s earliest prehistoric ecosystem recreations to dinosaur collectibles from Chicago’s 1934 Century of Progress Fair.

It’s a fun way to observe how scientific thinking has changed about prehistoric marine lifestyles and body plans. Remember when science thought Brontosaurus spent its life submerged in lagoons? Or ichthyosaurs used their flippers to paddle around on land?

Take a look at our favorite fossils and toys in our Flickr album.

Reproduction of 1862 wall-chart illustration by Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins Enaliosauria (extinct marine reptiles) produced for the UK’s Department of Science and Art, featuring land-dwelling Ichthyosaurus and Plesiosaurus.

To see how art and science were brought together to create this immersive time-travel experience, watch this short documentary from PBS Reno, take a trip to Nevada’s Augusta Mountains with paleontologist Martin Sander and see how artists and designers brought his Triassic creatures to life:

Jewelry Reflects Cosmic Splendor at AMNH

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There’s plenty of dazzling eye candy tucked away in a corner of the Gems and Mineral Hall inside the American Museum of Natural History. Look at sparkly diamonds, rubies, emeralds, turquoise, and every other polished gem you can think of as you contemplate the mysteries of stars, planets, and distant galaxies in Cosmic Splendor: Jewelry from the Collections of Van Cleef & Arpels, on view through January 4, 2026.

The gallery is an ethereal cosmic universe – it feels like you’re floating in deep space where infinite points of light illuminate and reflect thousands of facets of about 60 astronomy-based jewelry creations by the 129-year-old luxury house. It’s a small space, but the illusion suggests the limitless night sky.

Inspired by images of the the spiral Porpoise Galaxy: 2021 Opal Nebula Clip; black opal surrounded by gold, emeralds, rubies, sapphires, tourmaline, and diamonds. From Van Cleef’s Under the Stars high jewelry collection. Courtesy: private collection.

The curators have arranged the dazzlers into loose astronomical themes, like the Sun, Moon, Planets, and Galaxies, but closer inspection demonstrates how the the designers of these works were inspired by the views of the Milky Way, knowledge about black holes or meteors, or images from the Hubble Space Telescope. 

The Moon: 1969 yellow gold Moon pendant to commemorate the first men to land there; ruby marks the spot. Courtesy: Van Cleef & Arpels.
2021 Whirlpool Galaxy Clip, inspired by the Ring Nebula in the constellation Lyra; blue tourmaline (center) with garnet outer ring. From Van Cleef’s Under the Stars high jewelry collection. Courtesy: private collection.

The masterworks in the AMNH exhibition are drawn primarily from Van Cleef’s Sous les étoiles (Under the Stars) collection, but a few pieces are showstoppers from previous collections inspired by Jules Verne’s sci-fi or NASA’s 1969 Moon landing.

Inspired by Jules Verne’s 1865 sci-fi space travel story – the 2010 gold, sapphire, garnet, and diamond Tampa Necklace. From Van Cleef’s Extraordinary Journeys high jewelry collection. Courtesy: private collection.

See some of our favorites in our Flickr album.

2021 gold, mauve and pink sapphire, ruby, and diamond Doubles Galaxies Saphir Mauve Clip; inspired by the Virgo constellation’s merging Butterfly galaxies. From Van Cleef’s Under the Stars high jewelry collection.
2010 Star Necklace; gold and diamonds flow around an Australian black opal. From Van Cleef’s Extraordinary Journeys high jewelry collection. Courtesy: private collection.

Listen as Nicolas Bos, Van Cleef’s CEO and Artistic Director describes the history and inspiration of the Sous les étoiles (Under the Stars) collection.

Here’s astrophysicist Isabelle Grenier explaining more about the scientific inspiration behind these these jeweled masterpieces.

Before January 4, take a video stroll through the exhibit courtesy of Van Cleef & Arpels here.

Out of This World: 2021 gold, sapphire, and diamond Stellar Explosion Transformable Necklace; designed to be reconfigured as separate necklaces and a clip. From Van Cleef’s Under the Stars high jewelry collection. Courtesy: private collection.

Contemporary Pueblo Architecture Honors Ancient Beliefs

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Any visitor to Chaco Canyon National Historial Park (850-1250 CE) makes the journey to appreciate innovative masonry of the Great Houses, the precision of the ancient road system, and the astronomically aligned walls, windows, and kivas. But how do contemporary Pueblo architects incorporate these traditional beliefs in their 21st century projects?

A fascinating, in-depth exhibition, Restorying our Heartplaces: Contemporary Pueblo Architecture – on view at Albuquerque’s Indian Pueblo Cultural Center through December 7, 2025 – explores how modern Indigenous architects incorporate traditional world views into their work.

2023 photo Kivas at Pueblo Bonito,Chaco Canyon by curator Ted Jojola (Islela Pueblo) showing advanced masonry and architectural concepts.

For example, just look at the design of the National Museum of the American Indian’s Resource Center – an organic design, aligned to the four cardinal directions, with extensive use of cedar wood.

1999 plans for the National Museum of the American Indian Resource Center. Courtesy: Ted Jojola (Isleta Pueblo)
Views of the 1999 National Museum of the American Indian Cultural Resource Center in Suitland, Maryland. Courtesy: Lynn Paxson.

This exhibition coincides with the 50th anniversary of the 1975 Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act – legislation that shifted Native American policy in the United States from assimilation to self-determination. Tribes were now able to initiate and run justice, government, health and education departments of their own – a change that triggered a construction boom for new schools and administrative buildings.

The show opens as an immersive experience in a large, circular gallery that introduces the core belief system and origin story of the Ancient Puebloans. Across a large screen in a vivid animation, the Pueblo people emerge into this world from a previous world. You watch them migrating outward in a spiral – symbols that are reflected across the art, murals, and photographs on the surrounding walls.

Mural by Dominic Aquero (Cochiti) with symbols of Pueblo creation; T-door represents the spiritual passage between two worlds (sky and Earth)

This experience sets the stage for the rest of the exhibition by showing how the stonework and beliefs reflected by the architecture of Ancient Puebloan centers points the way forward for Pueblo architects today.

2022 print by Gerald Dawavandewa (Hopi Cherokee) with T-shaped door for passage between worlds (sky and Earth]

The exhibition describes Ancient Puebloan architectural innovations – passive solar heating, precise window alignment, and masonry approaches. How did the Ancients achieve such precision in their dramatic Chaco and Mesa Verde buildings?

The curators present engineering and survey tools from archaeological excavations and modern survey backpacks side by side – plumb bobs, levels, and measuring devices.

Ancient stone and ceramic plumb bobs (from California and from Hewitt excavation at Rito de los Frijoles, Bandelier). Courtesy: Museum of Indian Arts & Culture/Lab of Anthropology.
Modern survey tools: level, tape measure, compass, brass plumb bob, wood, and string. Courtesy: curator Ted Jojola (Isleta Pueblo)

They also add comparisons of selenite used as window panels in Old Acoma’s Sky City (among the longest-inhabited communities in the US) and the contemporary architectural approach to windows in the recently built Acoma museum – a thoughtful reflection of the past

The exhibition directly addresses past HUD housing approaches on tribal lands – pushing suburban-style low-income housing, which moved families away from the traditional Pueblo plaza (the HeartPlace) and provided pitched-roof designs that blunted community cultural practices that utilized traditional Pueblo flat-roof construction.

The curators remind us of the continual upkeep required by adobe construction – a repeated communal task typically undertaken by a community’s women that happened on a regular, cyclical basis.  It’s also a reminder that Pueblo communities view buildings as living presences that evolve – not just concrete objects exist in a “finished” state.

Views of the 2000 campus for the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe. Courtesy: Paul Fragua (Jemez Pueblo)
Views of 2004 building designed by Janet Carpio (Laguna/Isleta Pueblos) for Pueblo of Isleta’s Headstart/Child Care Center.

Wall panels, blueprint books, and architectural models are used to demonstrate the contemporary innovations of Pueblo architects – the Resource Center of the National Museum of the American Indian (1999), the campus of the Institute of Amercian Indian Arts in Santa Fe (2000), and the Headstart Child Care Center for Isleta Pueblo (2004). Both incorporate design elements echoing the spiral migration path, alignment to the cardinal directions, and colors and elements of the Earth.

A huge multimedia interactive theater punctuates the walk-through – an immersive visit to Acoma’s new Cultural Center and Haa’ku Museum with tribal members and designers explaining the architectural details and how the buildings reflect the landscape and traditional belief systems.

Immersive interactive experience of Acoma’s new Cultural Center and Haa’ku Museum. Courtesy: Anna Seed Productions, Electric Playouse, and UNM ASPIRE.

The exhibition features the work of the Indiginous Design and Planning Institute (iD+Pi) at UNM and presents dramatic architectural models of the past, present, and future of the community of Nambe Pueblo.

Look through the exhibition in our Flickr album here – a future-forward look at the continuing progression of innovative architectural designs and the next generation of designers and architects respecting and integrating the Pueblo world view with buildings considered to be living, breathing HeartPlaces for the community. 

2023 photo by curatorTed Jojola (Islela Pueblo) North Window View from Desert View Watchtower, Grand Canyon showing the T-shaped doorway symbolizing passage between worlds

As the curators made clear in their opening-day remarks, a similarly extensive exhibition could explore architectural innovation and spiritualism across Navajo Nation. Let’s hope that happens!

Eternal Signs from the Australian Outback

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It’s not often you find yourself surrounded by vibrant contemporary art that directly connects you to dreams and stories that have been told and retold for tens of thousands of years. Meet some exceptional visual storytellers from nearly twenty Australian regions in Eternal Signs: Indigenous Australian Art from the Kaplan and Levi Collection, on view at the Nevada Museum of Art in Reno through November 2, 2025.

This exhibition showcases well-known and emerging artists in different geographic areas of Australia’s north coast and interior desert. See our favorites in our Flickr album and consult the map to locate the communities where the featured artists work.

2011 acrylic painting Wanampi Jukurrpa by Tiger Palpatja (Pitjantjatjara) from Kaltjiti, APY Lands about the water serpent and how sacred rock forms were created.

For thousands of millenia, the indigenous groups in Australia have created rock art, painted spiritual images on eucalyptus bark, and documented their “dreams” – a mix of creation stories, confirmation of people’s integration with the land and animals, and everyday life.  These visual affirmations present a simultaneous representation of past, present, and future, hence the term “eternal signs.”

2001 Saltwater Crocodile by Craig Koometa (Wik-Alkan) from Aurukun, in far north of Queensland; at rear, paintings by artists from Utopia at the edge of the Tanami Desert.

Stories, images, culture, dreams, and language differ greatly among Australia’s 120 indigenous groups. (We’ve indicated each artist’s geographic region and particular language after their name.)

From Arnhem Land in the north, Paddy Fordham Wainburranga (Rembarrnga) from Wugularr, Northern Territory is one of the best-known artists shown. Growing up in the bush, Paddy was eleven when he first encountered anyone outside his traditional community. In the 1970s, he moved to Maningrida, a government-sponsored settlement, and began painting at the Arts & Culture Center. Paddy’s work often depicts ancestral spirits that he first encountered in rock art.

1991 Balangalngalan by Paddy Fordham Wainburranga (Rembarrnga) – a shape-shiting ancestor who guides and heals.
1994 painted wood Manjhkikilyo (Malevolent Mimih Spirit) by Paddy Fordham Wainburranga (Rembarrnga) from Wugularr, Northern Territory – a bad ancestral spirit from ancient cave art.

John Bulunbulun (Ganalbingu), another Maningrida Arts & Culture Center artist, also starts with traditional dreams and forms – for example, he uses a traditional hollow-log coffin as a basis from which to sculpt a three-dimensional dream about the long-necked turtle creator. Take a look.

More recent work by Yirrkala artists in East Arnham reflect ecological concerns and the clans’ interest in protecting ancestral lands. A dramatic sculpture by Guynbi Ganambarr (Naymil) reflects the rich, majestic, and spiritual coastal life of the Grove Peninsula. A masterful wall piece by Djambawa Marawili (Madarrpa) is one in a series that he’s used to affirm his people’s land and sea rights – even used as legal evidence in court cases challenging indigenous rights to land and sea, demonstrating the deep, spiritual meaning behind their claims.

Cormorant catches a freshwater fish: 2011 carved eucalyptus bark Wurran Ga Baypinga by Guynbi Ganambarr (Naymil) from Yirrkala, East Arnhem
2014 Source of Fire by Djambawa Marawili (Madarrpa) from Yirrkala in East Arnhem; ochres and sawdust on bark showing strong ancestral truth-tellers.

Here are two works by the award-winning Petyarre sisters from the area of Utopia on the border of the Tanami Desert in central Australia – an area that began to achieve acclaim as an art center in the late 1990s with dot paintings referencing the landscape and women’s expertise in bush medicine.

Detail of 1992 acrylic Mountain Devil Awelye by Gloria Tamerre Petyarre (Anmatyerre) from Utopia in the central Tanami Desert.
1996 acrylic My Place Atnangkere by Kathleen Petyarre (Anmatyerre) from Utopia in the central Tanami Desert; aerial view of creation story journey across the desert homeland.

We have to give a big shout-out to Robert Kaplan and Margaret Levi for donating over 70 of these amazing artworks to the Nevada Museum of Art. Their passion shows!

In case you aren’t able to enjoy this insightful, beautiful show at the Nevada Art Museum, art lovers will be able enjoy The Stars We Do Not See: Australian Indigenous Art from the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne as it tours across the North America. Right now, The Stars We Do Not See is scheduled for the National Gallery in Washington, D.C. through March 1, 2026.

2008 ochres on linen Sing Out Spring – Yiyili Country by David Cox (Goonlyandi/Walmajarri) from Warmun, Western Australia.

The Stars We Do Not See will travel to the Denver Art Museum (April 19 – July 26, 2026), Portland Art Museum (September 2026 – January 2027), Peabody Essex Museum in Salem (February – June 2027), and the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto (July 2027 – January 2028).

Two 2004 acrylic paintings Ngura (Country) by Tali Tali Pompey (Pitjantjatjara) from Kaltjiti, APY Lands.

Abstracting Nature in Albuquerque

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How do abstract artists visually channel their response to awesome landscapes? You’ll get a glimpse of how ten artists approach natue and atmospheric phenomenon in Abstracing Nature, an engaging contemporary exhibition at the Albuquerque Museum, on view thorugh October 12.

Works by grand-master abstractionists Richard Diebenkorn and Agnes Martin greet you right at the entrance. 

Diebenkorn isn’t normally associated with New Mexico, but decades before embarking upon his epic Ocean Park series, he spent two years (1950-1952) at the University of New Mexico (1950-1952) working toward his MFA before returning to the West Coast.

Richard Diebenkorn’s 1952 Untitled (Albuquerque), featuring deep earth tones and undulating forms.

The Diebenkorn on display is a recent museum acquisition from those years. Complete abstract expressionist approach to the colors and undulating geologic forms he saw surrounding the post-war boom town.

Martin – the abstractionist grand-dame of New Mexico – made no attempt to hide the fact that her grids and minimal approach were expressions of the tranquililty and serenity she saw and felt from her retreats in Cuba and Galisteo, New Mexico.  She was channeling her emotional, meditative response in her surroundings – not following the reductivist, minimalist trend fo the East and West Coast gallery scene.

By getting up close to the two Martin paintings, you can appreciate her hand-drawn approach. Several stainless-steel sculptures by Agnes Martin’s great friend and student Karen Yank are nearby. The gleaming, hard-edged pieces do not resemble her mentor’s approach, except for the light, gestural touches across the surface.

Agnes Martin’s 1980 acrylic Untitled #6. Courtesy: New Mexico Museum of Art.
Karen Yank’s 2023 steel View with Silhouette VII and other sculptures visible through the portal. Courtesy: the artist.

The large pastels by Emmi Whitehorse look to the landscape and sacred colors of the Navajo Nation inspiration – a poetic approach most evident in Yei Retires to Mt. Taylor. Dramatic blue gestures suggest the spiritual turquoise color associated with the Navajo’s soutnern sacred mountain Tsoodzil.

Emmi Whitehorse 1985 pastel abstraction on canvas Yei Retires to Mt. Taylor.

Abstractions used by textile artist Joan Weissman come from a place of process in which she starts with recognizable nature studies but allows her iterations to become more abstract.  Approaching her seemingly abstract Ginko, only gradually do visitors see that the hand-knotted rug (created at large scale by Pakistani artisans) is an extreme close-up of a leaf. 

Joan Weissman’s 2006 Ginko, a wool and silk hand-knotted rug, highlighting the intricacies of the leaf. Courtesy: the artist

2023 Hearing the Sun by Marietta Patricia Leis. Courtesy: the artist

Mariette Patricia Leis translates her experience of nature more formally. In one case, six seemingly minimalist wall-mounted panels are painted to reflect how we perceive the color of sunlight in different atmospheres and at different times of the day.

Another is a series of abstract panels suggesting horizons across volcanic surfaces during Iceland’s 24 hours of darkness.

Enjoy walking through the full exhibition in our Flickr album.

Detail of 2018 Vacuities by Marietta Patricia Leis inspired by Iceland’s winter night sky. Courtesy: the artist.

Here’s a close look at Judy Tuwaletstiwa’s 2001 Divination. She transformed sand by creating an arrangement of glass objects – cubes, spheres, and organic shapes – all displayed across a soft sand base.

Like the rest of the work in this exhibition, it allows us to think about the natural world, our perception of it, and the many ways that the experience can be transformed into art.

Marsden Hartley: A Modernist on the Move

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With his traveling valise sitting in the center of the introductory gallery and a map nearby, you understand instantly that superstar artist Marsden Hartley was a man on the go.

Marsden Hartley: Adventurer in the Arts, on view at the New Mexico Museum of Art in Santa Fe through July 20, 2025, uses his personal possessions, works painted on two continents, and non-stop itinerary to demonstrate how landscape, life, and modern-art legends led him to create an epic body of work.

Take a look at our favorites in our Flickr album.

Hartley’s 1914 Berlin Series, No. 2 – flat, abstracted natural symbols. Courtesy: Jan T. and Marica Vilcek Collection.
Ready to travel – Hartley’s leather valise, address book and luggage tags. Courtesy: the artist’s estate; Bates College Museum of Art.

Looking around, there’s a wall of Maine mountainscapes he did in his thirties, a painting done just after Stieglitz sent him to Paris to soak up the vibes in Gertrude Stein’s salon, his accessories of rings and cigarette cases from Berlin in the 1920s, a Fauve-ist impression of Mount Saint-Victoire at Cezanne’s old stomping grounds in Aix, and photos of him and his dog at his Maine studio in the 1940s.

Hartley’s 1927 oil Mont Sainte-Victoire – painted in Aix, France where Cezanne once lived. Courtesy: Jan T. and Marica Vilcek Collection.

The exhibition merges Hartley’s paintings from the Jan T. and Marica Vilcek Collection with items donated by his favorite niece to Bates College in Maine – items he collected as he traveled; sketches and stuff sent to his neice; his camera, books, and snapshots; his studio paintbox, and other personal art. Together, the exhibition tells a story of innovation, personal journey, and relentless art making.

Hartley’s personal photos from his 1920s European adventures. Courtesy: Bates College Museum of Art

Hartley emerged from a hardscrabble childhood to see, feel, and experience art, nature, and transcendental spiritualism in New York, Boston, and Maine in 1890s.

He loved painting mountains and depicted water, earth and sky as a color-filled flat plane filled with jabbing brushstrokes – an approach that stuck with him throughout his life as he journeyed through New Mexico, the Alps, Mexico, and back in Maine.

Hartley’s 1907-08 oil Silence of High Noon – Midsummer painted in Stoneham Valley, Maine. Courtesy: Jan T. and Marica Vilcek Collection.

By the time he was in his early thirties, he had shown his landscapes to The Eight, knocked on Stieglitz’s gallery door, and got a one-man show (and a dealer for the next 20 years) at 291, the hottest modern art gallery in America.

Hartley’s 1910 Untitled (Maine Landscape)– water cascading down a rock face. Courtesy: Jan T. and Marica Vilcek Collection.

Getting to Europe in 1912, the color, cubism, and symbolism of the Blue Rider, Matisse, and Picasso made his head spin. His German friends introduced him to Kandinsky’s book Concerning the Spiritual in Art. He went out of his way to meet the man himself, and his painterly wheels turned.

The second gallery presents a large work from his Cosmic Cubism series – an airy, dreamy arrangement of signs, spiritual symbols, colors, and planes – along with drawings from his Amerika series, based loosely on Native American symbols and other abstract shapes. On view for only the second time in the United States, Schiff is a dazzling creation drawing signs and symbols from Native American and Egyptian cultures that spill out onto the painted frame.

Hartley’s 1912-1913 Portrait Arrangement, No. 2, created in Paris. Courtesy: Courtesy: Jan T. and Marica Vilcek Collection.
Schiff – part of the Amerika series Hartley painted in Germany. Courtesy: Vilcek Collection.
April 5 – July 20, 2025

Up to this point, Hartley’s only encounter with indigenous American culture came from visits to ethnography museums in Paris and Berlin, but that would soon change. The advent of World War I tore apart the avant-garde, his social circles, and the direction of his work. Although these Berlin abstractions were long considered by late 20th century critics to be the high point of his career, Hartley abandoned this artistic path when forced to return to the United States, started over, kept wandering, and went back to landscapes and still lifes to discover his “American” expressionist vision.

Hartley’s 1934 Autumn Landscape, Dogtown – a colorful painting made near Gloucester, Maine. Courtesy: Jan T. and Marica Vilcek Collection.

The exhibition does not unfold chronologically. Instead, it shows how much friends, place, and spiritual encounters affected him.

Near the Berlin abstractions are highly expressionist 1930s rockscapes from Maine and pointy Alpine peaks from his return to Bavaria. There’s an example of his stripped-down 1916 “synthetic cubist” work in Provincetown, a 1917 New England still life painted in Bermuda when he was budget-bunking with Demuth, and a red-saturated still life that is a therapeutic tribute to his Nova Scotia friends who died at sea in the late Thirties.

Hartley’s 1942 White Sea Horse – part of a series with vivid backgrounds done in Maine. Courtesy: Jan T. and Marica Vilcek Collection
Hartley’s 1935-39 Roses for Seagulls that Lost Their Way –made in Bermuda to honor his Nova Scotia friends lost at sea. Courtesy: Jan T. and Marica Vilcek Collection.

In the middle of this gallery are vitrines with highly personal, everyday stuff from a painter who never settled down, stayed on the move, and always kept creating.

Here’s his camera, a scrapbook of personal photos, his 1923 published book of poetry, a few books from his library, and a little toy and pressed flowers sent to his niece.    

Hartley’s photos from his 1917-1918 trip to Santa Fe. Courtesy: Bates College Museum of Art

Except for the Provincetown piece, all the surrounding paintings have direct, bold outlines, vivid colors, and vigorous, unglamorized visions – a fitting prelude to the last gallery of New Mexico landscapes.

Hartley’s 1919 El Santo painted in New Mexico.

The final gallery provides a panorama of landscapes, plus a dramatic image of a ridge of Mexican volcanoes. Hartley only spent part of

1918 in Taos and Santa Fe, where he traversed the hills, attended Pueblo ceremonies, and wrote about the indigenous culture. He also completed his El Santo still life with a black-on-black ceramic vase, a striped textile, and a Northern New Mexican retablo of a suffering Jesus.  

But it might be a surprise to learn that all of the Southwest landscapes were painted in Berlin in the 1920s – fittingly called his New Mexico “recollections” – or in Mexico in the 1930s.

Floating clouds, expressive lines, and abstracted mountains – all from his vivid mind and recollections of spiritual and physical experiences long past.  In the 21st century, increasing numbers of art historians and artists have looked to this phase of Hartley’s work for insight and inspiration – bold brushwork, expressive memory, and both a spiritual and emotional creative process.

Hartley’s 1923 oil New Mexico Recollection #14– painted in Berlin based upon memories of his year in the Southwest. Courtesy: Jan T. and Marica Vilcek Collection.
Hartley’s 1932 oil Lost Country – Petrified Sand Hills – a symbolic landscape inspired by mystical texts he discovered while painting in Mexico. Courtesy: Jan T. and Marica Vilcek Collection.

Toward the end of his life, the accolades, awards, honors, and retrospective exhibitions came his way, but Hartley remained the hardscrabble “painter of Maine,” barely interested in cashing the checks.

His niece, who preserved her uncle’s posessions and legacy after his death in 1943, took a train trip to New Mexico for the first time to see the landscapes that so inspired her uncle. Upon emerging from the train at the stop near Santa Fe, she looked up to take in the big, dramatic, cloud-filled sky. Thinking of all her uncle’s landscapes, she said, “Those clouds…I’d recognize them anywhere!”

If you see this show in Santa Fe, you will, too.

Louise Zelda Young’s 1943 photo Marsden Hartley’s Studio, Corea, Maine, where he worked in his final years. Courtesy: Bates College Museum of Art.

Master Printmaker Gene Kloss Sees Taos

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Do you wish you could travel back to Taos in the Thirties and Forties to experience the quiet, small, out-of-the-way place that inspired so many artists? Take a walk through this two-site exhibition, Legacy in Line: The Art of Gene Kloss, on view through June 8, 2025 at the Harwood Museum of Art and through May 31 at the Couse-Sharp Historic Site just off the Taos Plaza.

Kloss, whose artistic style was honed in the 1920s and 1930s, is arguably one of New Mexico’s favorite artists.  Kloss specialized in printmaking, creating an immediately recognizable style – a landscape, village, or pueblo scene with dramatic contrasts (often at night). Look at some of our favorites in our Flickr album

Kloss 1934 aquatint and drypoint Eve of the Green Corn Ceremony –Domingo Pueblo, which received a gold medal from the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. Courtesy: Couse Sharp Historic Site

Kloss fell in love with plrintmaking as an undergraduate art student at UC-Berkeley. She was captivated by the printmaking revival that swept Paris and Britain in the mid-19th century. Artists owned their own presses and produced affordable prints of landscapes and small towns that encouraged everyone to collect art.

Kloss 1941 drypoint Church of the Storm Country. Courtesy: Taos Municipal Schools.

A lifelong resident of the Bay Area, she first came to Taos on a car-camping honeymoon in 1925 with her writer-composer husband. She fell in love with the landscape, the culture, and the pueblos of Northern New Mexico. Did I mention she brought along her 60-lb. portable printing press?

Kloss 1934 drypoint All Saints Day Mass – Taos. Courtesy: Taos Municipal Schools.

Kloss was prolific, and the next year showed over 100 of her paintings and prints – including Taos subjects – at a wildly successful solo show in Berkeley. She and her husband were hooked on the inspiration Taos provided, and soon rented a getaway home, where they would spend two to four months per year. 

Kloss 1934 drypoint Acoma. Courtesy: Taos Municipal Schools.

Kloss developed her images from quick sketches and from memory, bringing the drama as she precisely worked her impressions into the copper.

In the Thirties, Kloss did artwork under several New Deal programs and produced a nine-part series on New Mexico that was gifted to public schools in the state.

As a master of intaglio, drypoint, and aquatint, she developed an innovative technique in which she painted acid directly into the ground with a brush or pencil that allowed her to create super-deep tones, gradations, and atmospheres in her prints.

Few others could create scenes like hers – dramatic nighttime scenes at the pueblos, tiny pilgrims making their way at dusk among the mountains, or aerial views of old Spanish valleys.

Over her lifetime, Kloss would create over 18,000 signed prints, show in New York and Europe, and be honored with membership in the National Academy of Design. She always pulled her own prints in the studio, and kept on working through the Seventies, until the quality of commercial copper and ink that she had always used became unavailable.

Kloss 1950 drypoint and aquatint Desert Drama. Courtesy: Harwood Museum (Purcell gift)

The Couse-Sharp Historic Site (where the Taos Society of Artists was founded) and the Harwood Museum have mounted this fantastic show to honor a gift bestowed upon them by Joy and Frank Purcell, Taos residents and Kloss collectors that ultimately amassed over 130 of her works.

To see more of her work, watch this short New Mexico PBS documentary on Ms. Kloss with art historian David Witt, who talks about his friendship with her, her process, and unique interpretation of her Taos world:

Pelton & Jonson’s Transcendental Desert Art

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Decending into the ground-floor gallery of the University of New Mexico Art Museum, visitors find themselves in a transcendental chamber, filled with abstraction, color, and spiritual emanations.

Pelton & Jonson: The Transcendent 1930s, on view in Albuquerque through March 15, features the work, letters, and personal photographs documenting the professional and personal friendship between two artists that wanted people to see realities beyond the visible world. Artists Raymond Jonson, former UNM professor, and Agnes Pelton, the visionary New York artist who relocated to the Western desert, felt they were kindred spirits, and the exhibition shows us why.

Agnes Pelton’s 1930 painting The Voice – suggesting enlightened dialogue within human consciousness.

As a young artist, Jonson was thunderstruck by the modern art he witnessed in the 1913 Armory Show when it came to Chicago (which included a painting by his future friend, Agnes Pelton from her “imaginative” period of work). Jonson read Kandinsky’s influential The Art of Spiritual Harmony when it was published in English in 1914, and increasingly pushed his work toward pure shape and design that could evoke a deeper response from the viewer.

By 1930, he and his wife moved to Santa Fe. He began teaching, curating shows, and continuing to pursue abstraction. When concepts were simply too much for a single canvas, he conceived a triptych.

Raymond Jonson’s 1930 tryptich – Time Cycle: Morning, Noon, and Night

Around 1931, new-age/Jungian composer, author, and painter Dane Rudhyar told Jonson about Pelton’s abstractions, and put them in touch.  For the next 30 years, Jonson and Pelton corresponded about art making, materials, abstraction, and spiritual connections.

By this time, Pelton had had 14 solo exhibitions and been in 20 group shows. Her interest in spiritual practices kept growing, and the lure of the new-age communities in southern California beckoned her. During a 1932 yoga-retreat trip to Cathedral City, she decided to stay put and paint in the peaceful desert for the rest of her life

Pelton’s 1930 White Fire – showing light radiating from the inner self – from Jonson’s 1933 exhibition
Pelton’s 1932 Mount of Flame – symbolizing the beauty in the abstract – from Jonson’s 1933 exhibition.

In 1933, Jonson invited Pelton to participate in a Santa Fe exhibition alongside himself and Cady Wells. This current exhibition at UNM commemorates this convergence by reuniting some of the original works by Pelton, Wells, and Jonson.  See some of the pieces in our Flickr album.

From the 1933 exhibition: Jonson’s 1933 charcoal drawing Ascending Circle

Jonson and his wife took a road trip to visit Pelton in 1935 – their one and only meeting. Although they were at a distance, the letters kept coming, and when Jonson and others in New Mexico organized the Transcendental Painting Group in 1938, she was invited to participate and serve as the grand dame/president.

In recent years, Agnes Pelton’s work has been resurgent due to the traveling exhibition organized in 2019 by the Phoenix Art Museum, which traveled to the Whitney in 2020. Read our review here.

To hear how this Albuquerque exhibition came together, listen in on Christian Waguespack’s interview with curator Mary Statzer:

UNM is lucky to have over 600 works by Raymond Jonson in its collection, and all the letters, sketches, publications, and journals he kept. For more on Raymond Jonson’s life and work, visit his portal on the UNM website.

Jonson touching up work at his solo exhibition in Tulsa in a 1937 photo by F. Von James.
1935-1940 photo of Pelton reading the TPG brochure in her Cathedral City studio with Mount of Flame behind her.