Don Crowley was born in Redlands, California. After high school graduation and the military service he married and moved to New York City where he began a 21 year career as a commercial artist.

 He went to Tucson in 1973 with the idea of painting exclusively for galleries and ended up moving there permanently the next year.

In Arizona, his models were often members of the San Carlos Indian Reservation in eastern Arizona. Eventually, and then almost exclusively, he painted a family of Paiutes, the Martineaus, from the Kaibab Plateau region of northern Arizona. He often travels across the west, making sketches and taking photographs, from which many of his paintings are then based upon.

He describes his life now in this way, “This is a calling. It’s very fortunate to know what you want out of life. It’s the searching and doing of it that’s important. The gift is having the goal.” Crowley is represented by some of the most prestigious western art galleries in the country including Settlers West (Tucson, AZ), Trailside (Scottsdale, AZ; Jackson Hole, WY) and Alterniann (Santa Fe, NM).

Don Crowley is also a member of the the “Tucson 7,” an informal group of artists who all began their careers in commercial art and illustration and then have made the successful transition to Western fine art. He was elected in 1994 as a member of the Cowboy Artists of America, a group devoted to keeping realistic Western art alive in the tradition of Remington and Russell. Enjoy some of his beautiful paintings below.