2019 Artist Spotlight Featured Artists Plus Past FWA Artists of The Year

In 1997, Friends of Western Art took the reins of the Artist of the Year Award formerly hosted by the Tucson Festival Society since 1974.  In keeping this Tucson tradition alive, FWA annually honored and brought attention to artists and their fine work.  

Click Here for Entire Artist of the Year Lithograph Gallery (1974-2017)

The Artist of the Year event has morphed into FWA’s Artist Spotlight.  Our October 12, 2019 Artist Spotlight event was San-Xavier Inspired: A Live Art Auction to Promote and Preserve, benefiting the Patronato San Xavier.

Click Here for More 2019 Artist Spotlight Info

2019 Featured Artists and Their Donated Works Benefiting Patronato San Xavier

Artist Spotlight: Allen Polt

At age six, Allen Polt’s first grade teacher, so impressed with his natural talent, arranged the artist’s first one-man show. Immediately, his gift was acknowledged...
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Artist Spotlight: Barbara Gurwitz

Inspired by her travels, Barbara Gurwitz paints bright, colorful, expressive landscapes featuring villages set in valleys of the mountainous countryside.  Her original paintings are in...
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Artist Spotlight: Barry Sapp

Primarily self-taught, Barry’s basic fundamentals of painting with emphasis on watercolor and acrylic on canvas were acquired through courses taken at the University of Arizona,...
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Artist Spotlight: Buck McCain

Painter and sculptor Buck McCain was raised on a working cattle ranch in southern California near the Mexican border. McCain was home-schooled by his mother...
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Artist Spotlight: Carol Swinney

Wyoming native, Carol Swinney paints primarily on location, preferring such places as the Rocky Mountains of Montana and Colorado, the mountains of Arizona or the...
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Artist Spotlight: Darcie Peet

Darcie grew up in the Midwest with a passion for the outdoors – often drawing and painting her outdoor adventures throughout primary and secondary school....
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Artist Spotlight: Judy Flynn

Judy paints a wide variety of subjects in both oil and watercolor. Her paintings are a representational style that includes landscape, portraits, figure and architectural...
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Artist Spotlight: Pat Doughty

Pat works with both brush and palette knife to create impressions of light and color. Snowbirds from Northern Minnesota for fourteen years, she and her...
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Artist Spotlight: Richard Iams

Richard Iams was born in 1950 in West Virginia, near the borders of Ohio and Pennsylvania. He attended Marietta College in southeastern Ohio, intending to major...
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Artist Spotlight: Rob Waters

Rob Waters is a Southern California native.  He did his undergraduate studies at Pt. Loma College in San Diego.  He also studied illustration at the...
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Sample of Past Artist of the Year Award Recipients (1974-2017)

Janice P. Smith

Janice P. Smith is a painter from Sierra Vista, Arizona. She received a Friends of Western Art scholarship to attend the Ray Roberts Portrait Workshop....
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Fred Fellows

Fred Fellows is a two-time past president of the world famous Cowboy Artists of America.  His work has won many awards including the Grumbacher Fine...
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Ray Swanson

The Navajo have a special place in his heart and finger tips.  “The most exciting, stimulating, and challenging paintings I do are portraits of the...
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Joni Falk

Joni Falk, realist painter of still life and landscapes, has lived in Phoenix, Arizona since 1960. She grew up in Chicago, and is a graduate...
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Santos Barbosa

Santos Barbosa was born and raised in McAllen, Texas. He has resided in Tucson since the 1960’s. He has drawn sketches of people and places...
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Bill Moomey

Bill Moomey was born and raised in Nebraska during the infamous Dust Bowl era. During those pre-TV, computer, and cell phone years, most of the...
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Tim Cox

Tim Cox was born in Safford, Arizona – a fourth generation westerner, he was raised on a property just outside of Duncan, Arizona.  Tim began...
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Don Crowley

Don Crowley is one of the best known painters of the contemporary Indian, preferring to paint the Apache and Paiute. From his earliest years, his...
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Buck McCain

Buck McCain is the 33rd artist to be recognized in what is now a Tucson tradition, started by the Tucson Festival Society in 1974, and...
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