Abstraction, Spirituality, the American Southwest: The Transcendental Painting Group

The Transcendental Painting Group was a collective of like-minded mid-century painters who utilized pure abstraction to connect with spiritual forces beyond the material world.  Through course lectures, discuss the group’s artistic models, philosophical sources, and spiritual goals. Then, standing in the galleries before these truly evocative paintings, consider just how their careful, intentionally arranged formal elements of color and form work to elevate viewers to transcendent states of perception.

Instructor Kevin R. Muller has taught at University of California, Berkeley; the San Francisco Art Institute; and Chabot College. He has also lectured on the collections at several museums, including the Crocker and the M. H. de Young Memorial Museum. He received his Ph.D. from UC Berkeley, and his publications cover three centuries of American art.