The Jonson Gallery 

of the University of New Mexico Art Museum

Housing the archives and the definitive collection of works by Raymond Jonson (1891-1982) and the Transcendental Painting Group (1938-1941).

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The Jonson Gallery web site is undergoing reconstruction and the links from this home page have been temporarily disabled.  

Please come back again.  Or, if you can, come to gallery in person!

The Jonson Gallery is located on the northern edge of the University of New Mexico's main campus at 1909 Las Lomas Road NE.  Free parking is available along the front of the building.

Hours: Tuesday - Friday 1-4 PM

Phone: 505-277-8927

Now in the galleries:

BRIDGE:

Between Transcendentalism, War,

and the Jonson Gallery, 1942-1948

Through August 28, 2009

The Jonson Gallery presents a select group of watercolors and oils painted by Raymond Jonson between 1942, after the dissolution of the Transcendental Painting Group, and 1948, when he proposed building gallery on the UNM campus.

Thus the 1940s span and connect two significant events in Jonson’s life by a series of works that are more than a singular resolve to continue the group.  Rather, Jonson believed that the Transcendental ideals of order and harmony, conveyed through intense color, rhythm, exacting relationships, and meticulous craftsmanship, could have a profound effect in the world, particularly a world then engaged in war.    As he wrote 1940,

Right now we need works done that present a high state of order.  They will not be seen by many but that does not matter for the act of doing releases that power, that sincerity and feeling that must have [their] effect.  I realize this places a new aspect and function on the creative arts.  I intend to it.

With the war’s end in 1945, Jonson increased his efforts by gathering the positive energy of his painting into one place.  The Jonson Gallery was, of course, to be the resting place of the artist’s substantial legacy.  But even more, it was the culmination and vital symbol of the artist’s intentions.

          Raymond Jonson, Watercolor No. 23, 1944