Don Crowley
Native American artwork on Consignment
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Born in Redlands, California, Don
Crowley got started in the world of art at such an early
age that he couldn’t remember a time when he wasn’t
drawing.
During his school years in Santa Ana,
he read everything he could about art and spent every
spare moment developing his skill. Service in the Merchant
Marines and the Navy enabled Crowley to enroll in the Art
Center School of Design in Los Angeles under the G.I.
Bill. Five years later, he moved to New York and began a
successful career in commercial illustration.
After more than twenty years in the
Northeast, Crowley felt restricted by the narrow range of
his commercial work and began to work more extensively in
fine art. In 1973, he accepted an invitation to exhibit
his paintings at a gallery in Arizona. He was so taken by
the area that he decided to continue his career there.
Crowley visits the San Carlos
Reservation annually to continue chronicling the lives of
his subjects. “I hope that my work expresses the beauty
and dignity of these very special people,” he says.
Through Crowley’s work, his collectors have watched his
subjects grow over the years. 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.
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
very encouraging. |
