Maurice Tuchman, LACMA’s first curator (1964–1993) of 20th century art, remains an outsized figure in the history of art in Los Angeles. Known for a legacy both controversial and groundbreaking, his most well known exhibitions—Art and Technology (1971), The Spiritual in Art: Abstract Painting 1890–1985 (1986), and Parallel Visions: Modern Artists and Outsider Art (1992)—continue to resonate today. The following conversation looks more deeply into Tuchman’s motivations for staging the Spiritual in Art exhibition, his struggles to realize it, its reception, and the continued influence and controversy of “the spiritual in art” today.