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Recognition & Awards

Through shared effort, whether through time, resources, creativity, or advocacy this space has continued to grow as a place of art, history, and connection. We are deeply grateful to all who have contributed to the life of the home and the spirit of Agnes Pelton.

Photo of Agnes Pelton by Alice Boughton, 1909. Courtesy of Nyna Dolby.

Agnes Pelton Society ⬩ Recognition, Awards & Honors

  • A Dazzling Daughter is “a DAR member who through diligent application of her unique talents and abilities, has made a significant and positive contribution to American or International culture, society, or history.” 

    Only 12 Californians are on the list, and only eight of the honorees are artists, including Pelton, folk artist Grandma Moses, and Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, founder of the Whitney Museum in New York.

    Exploring the Pelton & DAR Connection:

    Pelton, a descendant of Revolutionary War Patriot Captain Benjamin Pelton of New York, was a founder of the Cahuilla Chapter of the DAR in 1948. The chapter celebrated its 77th anniversary in January 2025 by placing a commemorative plaque at the Pelton home, where the chapter met in its early days.

    Learn More Here →

  • The Cahuilla Chapter of the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) awarded the Excellence in Historical Preservation Medal and Certificate to Simeon Den and Peter Palladino for their work in preserving the home and legacy of Agnes Pelton 

    January 17, 2025

  • In January 2025, the Cahuilla Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) celebrated the chapter's 77th anniversary by placing a commemorative plaque at her former home in Cathedral City, which is also a designated historic site.

  • Presented To: Agnes Pelton Society
    "8-Bít Frida" Mural Dedication

    Cathedral City, CA
    July 6, 2018
    56 Assembly District

  • Presented To: Agnes Pelton Society
    Non-Profit of the Year
    By the Cathedral City Chamber of Commerce
    2016 Orion Awards
    June 17, 2016

  • Presented To: Peter Palladino, Noted Portrait and Celebrity Photographer.

    In Honor of: Cathedral City 35th Anniversary Celebration. Cultural Contrast Community Photo Exhibition.

    Cathedral City, CA
    November 15, 2016

  • Presented To: Simeon Den, Co-chair of the Cathedral City Public Arts Commission & Galleries/Director/ Curator of Simeon Den Gallery/Fine and Temple Arts

    Cathedral City 35th Anniversary Celebration. Cultural Contrast Community Photo Exhibit

    Cathedral City, CA
    November 15, 2016

  • presented to Simeon Den

    Tor Helping

    PALM SPRINGS UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT
    SHINE!

    November 2017

  • Whereas, the Agnes Pelton Society. a non-profit organisation established to promote the life, art, and legacy of American Artist Agnes Pelton (1881-1961); and

    Whereas, on Sunday, February 8, 2015 The Agnes Pelton Society in partnership with the City of Cathedral City hosted its Fourth Annual Home Tour of Artist and Historic Homes in the Cathedral City Cove.

  • The Cathedral City Council takes great pleasure recognising Simeon Den & Peter Palladino, Palladino Den Studios. In Recognition of your generous donation to the Public Arts Commission and the City of Cathedral City of 14 iconic photos of our City’s recent history.

  • In recognition of his outstanding efforts in securing the historical site designation for the Agnes Pelton Home.

    We hereby express our sincere gratitude and admiration for Mr. Palladino's valuable contributions to our city's historical preservation and artistic appreciation.

    Cathedral City, California
    September 2024

  • Presented To:
    Simeon Den of the Agnes Pelton Society.

    With This Momento of His Famous

    "Dancing On The Roof Performance And His Many Efforts In Putting Together The 2013 Artists’ Tour of Homes, With Heartfelt Thanks and Appreciation.

    The Cathedral City Historical Society, February 2013
    ————-
    Presented to:
    Peter Palladino of the Agnes Pelton Society

    Carhedral City Thanks You For Your Contribution Of Art To The City And To The World.

    In Appreciation Of Your Photography

    We Award You This Plaque With Hearfeft Thanks.

    Chosen For The 2013 Home Tour of Artists' Homes And Studios In The Cathedral City Cove.

    By the Cathedral City Historical Society.

A Lasting Presence: Pelton Exhibitions

  • Agnes Pelton: Desert Transcendentalist (2020)
    Presented at the Whitney Museum of American Art, this exhibition situated Pelton’s work within American modernism, emphasizing spiritual abstraction and the formative influence of the desert landscape on her visual language.

  • Agnes Pelton: Desert Transcendentalist (2020–2021) Shown near Pelton’s longtime home, the exhibition foregrounded the connection between her mature work and the desert environment, with particular attention to light, place, and inward reflection.

  • Agnes Pelton: Desert Transcendentalist (2019–2020)

    This presentation examined Pelton’s engagement with transcendentalism and non-objective painting, highlighting the consistency of her vision and its relationship to artistic and spiritual currents in the American Southwest.

  • Special Exhibition, Agnes Pelton: Desert Transcendentalist

    Agnes Pelton: Desert Transcendentalist is the first exhibition on the little-known American painter in more than 24 years. Born to American parents in Stuttgart, Germany, Agnes Pelton (1881-1961) and her family briefly lived in Basel, Switzerland before returning to the United States in 1888.

  • Pelton & Jonson: The Transcendent 1930s (2023)

    This exhibition placed Pelton’s work in dialogue with Raymond Jonson, examining shared commitments to abstraction and metaphysical inquiry within the Transcendental Painting Group.

  • Another World: The Transcendental Painting Group, 1938–1945

    In 1938 in New Mexico, a loose configuration of artists came together to form the Transcendental Painting Group. Led by New Mexico painters Raymond Jonson and Emil Bisttram, and joined by painters such as Agnes Pelton and Lawren Harris, the members of the group sought to explore spiritually heightened abstraction by employing free-wheeling symbols and imagery drawn from the collective unconscious. According to their manifesto they strove "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.” Due to the onset of World War II the group was short-lived. However, their paintings continue to emphasize how abstraction can be used in service of the spiritual. Another World is the first comprehensive traveling museum exhibition devoted to the group.

  • A critical retrospective that toured nationally, originating at the Palm Springs Desert Museum (now the Palm Springs Art Museum). This show is credited with first bringing her out of relative obscurity.

AI-generated reenactment of Agnes Pelton in later life, 1957. Based on an original photograph from the Carolyn Tilton Cunningham Family Collection. Courtesy of Nyna Dolby.

Agnes Pelton ⬩ Landmark Achievements & Legacy Honors

  • The Desert Transcendentalist exhibition itself was supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts, signaling significant federal recognition of her cultural importance. The Phoenix Art Museum organized the exhibition, which was supported other partners, including The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.

  • Pelton is recognized as a "Luminary" by the National Association of Women Artists (NAWA), an honor given to pioneering women in the arts.

  • Since December 2023, MoMA has featured Pelton in its Nature Symbolized gallery, cementing her place in the permanent narrative of modern art.

  • Agnes’s work is now featured in major collections and ongoing displays, such as the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York and the Hilbert Museum of California Art.

  • In recognition of Agnes’s legacy, the city of Cathedral City designated the nearby alleyway and street as Agnes Pelton Way. Local artists have been commissioned to paint murals in her former neighborhood, Cathedral City Cove, to commemorate her history and the artist colony she helped lead.

  • The Agnes Pelton Society hosts annual events, such as the inaugural Pelton House Museum Day (first held in 2019), which includes docent-led tours of her historic home and meditation gardens.

  • Her work has been the focus of recent major scholarly studies, most notably in Erika Doss’s Spiritual Moderns: Twentieth Century Artists and Religion(2022), which positions her alongside figures like Wassily Kandinsky and Hilma af Klint.

  • While she was famously denied a Guggenheim fellowship in 1932, recent scholarly work and major museum retrospectives (like the Whitney's) are frequently cited as the ultimate "critical vindication" of her rejected application.