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.
With his family, Crowley settled in the Southwest, where he began
forging a relationship with a group of Native Americans. Although
he is recognized and respected for many different kinds of paintings,
he is best known for his sensitive and skilled portraits of these
Apache and Paiute women and children. 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.
