The Crocker Art Museum is delighted to announce Another World: The Transcendental Painting Group. Organized by independent curator Michael Duncan and the Crocker, this landmark museum exhibition is devoted to an often overlooked group of 20th-century abstract artists who pursued enlightenment and spiritual illumination amid the dramatic natural surroundings of the American Southwest. The exhibition includes approximately 90 works made by the 11 visionary abstractionists.

“There is an otherworldly beauty and quality of the artwork itself. The artists sought to connect and communicate with viewers through potently charged symbols and dynamic relationships of color and form,” says Scott A. Shields, Ph.D., Ted and Melza Barr Chief Curator & Associate Director, a leading specialist in the art of California and the American West. “These motivated individuals transformed the dramatic natural surroundings of the Southwest into luminous reflections of the human spirit.”

Another World aims to provide a broad perspective on the group’s work and its relevance today. The exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated publication by Duncan and other scholars, including Associate Director and Chief Curator Scott A. Shields, who assert the group’s artists as being crucial contributors to an alternative throughline in modern art history.

The exhibition opens at the Crocker amidst a national tour that included the Albuquerque Museum. the Philbrook Museum of Art, and The Baker Museum. Following the Crocker’s presentation, Another World travels to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

Exhibition Related Programming

The exhibition is brought to life with a variety of public programs and studio art classes designed to inspire and uplift Museum visitors. Key among the upcoming programs is Mass Meditation – a Museum-wide gathering to raise consciousness and manifest peace. Local meditation practitioners, yoga teachers, spiritual leaders, and communities come together to cultivate mindfulness.

Public Programs

• ArtMix: Supernatural – Thursday, September 8

• Classical Concert: Audrey Shepherd and Theresa Keene – Sunday, September 11

• Mass Meditation: International Day of Peace – Wednesday, September 21

• ArtTaste: Spirits – Thursday, October 27

• The Official Rogue Book Club: Mexican Gothic – Thursday, October 6

• Homeschool Day: Abstract Collage – Thursday, November 3

• Art + Soul Sundays – Fourth Sundays

• Yoga – September 25

• Sound Healing – October 23

• Meditation – November 27

Studio Art Classes

• Abstraction and Spirituality in the American Southwest: The Transcendental Painting Group – Sundays, September 18 and 25

• Approaching the Spiritual Realm Through the Artwork of the Transcendental Painting Group – Sunday, October 9

Program and class details and registration are available at my.crockerart.org.

This exhibition was made possible with support from the Henry Luce Foundation.