Agnes Pelton

Agnes Pelton is best known for her spiritual abstract paintings, yet during her thirty years residing in Cathedral City, California, she painted both desert landscapes and transcendental works, viewing these two styles—realism and abstraction—as complimentary forms of expression. Inspired by the exploration of the desert environment, Pelton employed color and light as essential means of expression in both of her approaches to painting.

Lacking dense vegetation, the desert’s geological features become more prominent, and the play of light and shadow amplifies the sculptural and expansive quality of the terrain as seen in Pelton’s Between Storms, Edom Hill of 1937. The sky and clouds dominate the upper half of the canvas, yet her portrayal of the “cloud shadows” as a blue and pink band on the distant mountain range is treated in a more abstract manner than the sky and foreground.

Edom Hill is located north of Cathedral City and Interstate 10 near Varner Road. Painted prior to the post-WWII development of the area, this work presents a view that Pelton may have been able to see from her home.