Virtual Art Tour

Don Crowley, American, born 1926

The Blue Starquilt

“In 1978,” wrote Tucson, Arizona, artist Donald V. Crowley, “I was researching western subject matter for my paintings on an Indian cattle ranch about 50 miles into the Apache reservation at San Carlos, Arizona. The ranch is well over a hundred years old, being in operation when Geronimo was residing on that reservation. It is currently referred to as The Ranch at Arsenic Tubs. The University of Arizona has worked with the Indian management on this ranch for many years, studying and improving the herd, for the benefit of both parties. Some of the university veterinary students double as ranch hands. This young cowboy was one of those students. The saddle horses are brought in from the open range each morning – hence the burrs in the mane. The young cowboy is feeding his selected mount and several others from bags filled with oats, a treat the horses dearly love. I thought it an excellent subject for a painting.”

Crowley was a 1994 inductee into the Cowboy Artists of America and a 1953 graduate of Art Center School (now the Art Center College of Design) in Los Angeles, California. Upon graduation, Crowley and his wife B.J. moved to New York, where he worked as a commercial artist for over 21 years. Crowley and B.J. moved to Tucson in 1974, where he has become most well know for creating his realistic oil paintings of the Paiute and Apache Indians.