New York, NY, Montross Gallery, “Abstractions by Agnes Pelton,” November 11- 23, 1929, no. 12, Flowering. This solo exhibition included The Fountains, Caves of Mind, Star Gazer, Incarnation, Messenger, Lookouts, Ecstasy, Inward, Sleep, Being, Faith, Flowering, and Meadowlark’s Song – Winter.

Plainfield, NJ, Plainfield Public Library, “Exhibition of Paintings by Agnes Pelton,” March 16-30, 1931. This large solo exhibition consisted of thirty works: Peace, Being, The Fountains, Flowering, White Fire, Prayer, A Lotus For Lida, Sleep, Rose and Palm, Translation, Inward, Thought, Voyaging, Lookouts, In Winter, Radiance, Fire Sounds, Renunciation, Faith, Equilibrium, Ecstasy, Incarnation, Wells of Jade, Meadowlark’s Song – Winter, Star Icon No. 2, Hibiscus (Beirut, Syria), Windmill Path, 4 Hawaiian Flowers (decorative panels, samples for custom orders), Phantasy of Frost and Fire, Star Icon No.1.

Ogunquit, ME, Ogunquit Art Center, “9th Annual Exhibition of Painting & Etchings,” June 15-July 30, 1931. This exhibition included Pelton’s Being and Flowering, according to Margaret Stainer, “Agnes Pelton” (Fremont: Ohlone College Art Gallery, 1989) page 33.

Andover, MA, Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips Academy, “Third Loan Exhibition,” curated by Charles H. Sawyer, 1931 (specific months not known). This exhibition included Pelton’s Being and Flowering, according to Margaret Stainer, “Agnes Pelton” (Fremont: Ohlone College Art Gallery, 1989) page 33.

Brooklyn, NY, Brooklyn Society of Modern Artists, Painters & Sculptors Gallery, “Annual Exhibit,” March 1-13, 1932. This exhibition included Pelton’s Flowering and Ecstasy, according to Margaret Stainer, “Agnes Pelton” (Fremont: Ohlone College Art Gallery, 1989) page 33.

Margaret Stainer, “Agnes Pelton,” (Fremont: Ohlone College Art Gallery, 1989) published to coincide with their exhibition October 9 – November 5, 1989. Clarifying note: In this publication curator Margaret Stainer provides chronological listings of select Pelton “Imaginative Paintings” dating from 1911 through 1917 and “Symbolic Abstractions” dating from 1923/24 through 1961. These are not checklists of works shown at Ohlone College in Stainer’s exhibition; they are incomplete “lifetime output” listings of Pelton paintings in these respective categories known to exist through archival sources and “best information” at the time of compilation and publication in 1989. Since that time, additional information has surfaced which expands and revises these lists. Stainer’s list of then-known Pelton abstractions for the year 1929 consisted of: Caves of Mind (De Anza College, Permanent Collection), Lookouts (unlocated), Messengers (Phoenix Art Museum, Permanent Collection), Frost and Fire (unlocated), Incarnation (Private Collection), Flowering, Alchemy (The Buck Collection at University of California Irvine), Ahmi in Egypt (Whitney Museum of American Art, Permanent Collection), The Voice (Burchfield Penney Art Center, Buffalo State University, Permanent Collection), White Fire (Raymond Jonson Collection, University of New Mexico), Sea Change (Whitney Museum of American Art, Permanent Collection), Shell (unlocated), Voyaging (JLW Collection), The Guide (Orange County Museum of Art, Permanent Collection), Bells (unlocated), Thought (unlocated), Efflorescent Decoration (unlocated).

Ed Garman, Posthumous inventory of Agnes Pelton’s abstractions, “Raymond Jonson Papers, University of New Mexico” no. 28 (circa 1961-62). Ed Garman (1914-2004) was a member of the Transcendental Painting Group.

Agnes Pelton papers, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Notebook/Sketchbook IV, circa 1917-1929; compositional sketch and color notes for Flowering appear on frame 95a (left-hand page) which bears a small swatch of muted greenish paint in the upper right quadrant; at the lower left quadrant of sketchbook 95b another swatch of paint, bright green, appears directly adjacent to the composition and color notes for Flowering on page 95a. Both a&b pages of frame 97 contain Pelton’s handwritten Montross Gallery exhibition hanging configurations which list Flowering among the works to be shown.

“The Art News,” volume 28, issue 7 (November 16, 1929); Volume 28, Issue 7; Exhibitions in New York, Agnes Pelton Montross Gallery; brief overview of Pelton’s Montross exhibition (no titles listed)

“An Exhibit of Paintings: Miss Pelton Making Display of Her Work in New York,” “Matawan Journal,” (November 15, 1929): page 2. This newspaper article provides titles of all works exhibited at Montross Gallery including Flowering.

Note: John Moran Auctioneers is grateful for the assistance from Mr. Michael Kelley in the research and cataloguing of this painting.