Don
Crowley
Occasionally you’ll see a rare Don Crowley image
of a cowboy or a cattle drive, but what he is best known for
are handsome, clear portraits of Native American women and children,
not to mention their colorful Pendleton blankets. In fact, long-time
collectors of his work may see the same subject as both a girl
and woman, wearing the colorful, geometric-patterned blanket
that was handed down from generation to generation.
"I’ve been visiting the San Carlos Reservation
annually to continue chronicling their lives," said the
artist. It might have come as quite a surprise to the man
born in California with the commercial art career in New York
that he’d settle down in the West and spend two decades
watching these Native Americans grow. It was quite a journey,
starting in Redlands and Santa Ana, where Crowley read everything
he could about art and drew continuously.
Service in the merchant marine and the navy enabled him to
study at the Art Center School of Design in Los Angeles, after
which he moved to New York to succeed as an illustrator. After
twenty years he felt restricted by the narrow range of his
work and accepted an invitation to exhibit his personal paintings
in Arizona. The visit was a revelation and soon Crowley moved
there.
In 1995, he was elected to the Cowboy Artists of America,
and, in his first year, won the CA Gold Medal for Drawing
The following year he was awarded four awards: a Gold Medal
for Oil, Silver Medal for Drawing, the CA Award and the Kieckhefer
"Best in Show" Award. With customary dry humor,
Crowley termed this accomplishment "promising."
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