Special Events
FWA Annual BBQ Fundraiser
Bourbon, Bluegrass & Brews = Blast!
Barb Peck & Sandi Moomey thank Steve Hester & the “High Ridge Band” for their for their wonderful performance…the room was energized!
FWA’s Bourbon, Bluegrass and Brews event was held on Saturday, October 15, 2022 at the Mountain Oyster Club. Thank you to our 119 guests who helped us celebrate with great music, great food and a great cause: FWA promotes awareness of the art of the American West by providing sponsorship and support to Western artists, artisans, educational programs, and art-related organizations in Tucson and Southern Arizona. Click here for more photos and our event recognition page…
Tucson Festival of Book's Aline Goodman Young Artist Awards
For the 11th year in a row, Friends of Western Art sponsored the Aline Goodman Young Artist awards ceremony held at the Tucson Festival of Books on March 4, 2023. 24 finalists (entries are featured in poster photos https://friendsofwesternart.org/young_artist_awards_2023) were recognized.
This contest was open to students across Southern Arizona in preschool through high school. Students may use crayons, pencil, pastels, paint, colored pencils, charcoal or markers to create original artwork depicting Arizona’s history, diverse cultures, landscapes, architecture, flora and/or fauna.
In 2023, the special awards presentation featured Arizona Daily Star’s former Editorial Cartoonist David Fitzsimmons. In addition, all Young Artist finalists were awarded a $100 art supply gift card, a commemorative poster, and the Young Authors and Young Artists Anthology of Winners.
FWA hosted auction benefitting conservation efforts at Mission San Xavier in Tucson
Friends of Western Art, a Southern Arizona nonprofit organization, held a live auction of donated original art by several prominent Arizona artists on Saturday, October 12, 2019 at the Mountain Oyster Club in Tucson, AZ. Click Here for More About the Auction’s Art & Artists
The event, San Xavier-Inspired: An Art Auction to Promote and Preserve, raised $50,000 for the Patronato San Xavier, a nonprofit,non-sectarian organization founded in 1978 to conserve and preserve the Mission.
“In the past,we have sponsored Artist of the Year events that honored individual western artists and raised money for Tucson Museum of Art and the Amerind Museum. This event featured the work of multiple artists to benefit an organization whose focus is art and its preservation and conservation,” said Jim Sheehan, President of Friends of Western Art.
Buck McCain
‘White Dove of the Desert’ 11×14 oil
Patronato San Xavier is a nonprofit, non-sectarian organization that was founded in 1978 to promote the conservation and maintenance of the Mission San Xavier del Bac, a national historic landmark. Founded in 1692 by Jesuit Missionary Father Eusebio Francisco Kino, the Mission is the finest example of Mexican and Spanish Baroque architecture in the United States and an active mission that has been serving the same community for 327 years.
Friends of Western Art Grant to Patronato San Xavier to Help Restore Paintings
Friends of Western Art (FWA) is pleased to announce a Seed Grant to Patronato San Xavier to help fund the restoration of two paintings that hang in the nave of the church at the mission. Both nineteenth century paintings of Saint Francis of Assisi and The Virgin Guadalupe need to be cleaned of years of contaminants and have their frames repaired. The St. Francis painting also needs the canvas repaired and re-stretched. This work has been in progress since the Summer of 2019. FWA has previously helped restore other historic pieces of art, most notably the Shoshone Elk Hide Story Robe at the Amerind Museum in 2013.