Thin Blue Line: Crowley Marine

Friday, 14 December 2012

Crowley Marine

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,”