5 Famous Painters from Arizona

Here are the top 5 Arizona painters (of canvas, anyway):

Fritz Scholder

This Native American artist from Scottsdale became famous for his Pop Art paintings of Native American life. The paintings were immediately controversial, for their often bitter and negative depiction of Native American culture. He later received a fellowship from the MacDowell Colony.

Ed Mell

Born in Phoenix, Ed Mell later moved to New York and established himself as a commercial artist. Eventually, he moved back to Arizona, unable to pull himself away from the powerful desert landscapes, which featured prominently in his artwork.

Philip Curtis

This reclusive Surrealist painter was the original founder of the Phoenix Art Museum! A gallery there still bears his name. His most popular pieces were of people in Victorian dress participating in strange, unexpected activities.

Jackson Pollock

Yep, Pollock spent his boyhood on a small farm between Phoenix and Tempe, where Sky Harbor Airport now sits. Did his manic style originate with prodigious finger-paintings in the Arizona desert? We’ll probably never know.

Ted DeGrazia

DeGrazia was a total polymath, becoming famous in his lifetime as an impressionist, painter, sculptor, actor, composer, designer, architect, jeweler, and more. He studied art at the University of Arizona under Katherine Kitt.

Does all this art talk have you craving a new look for your home? Maybe some touch-ups around the exterior? That’s definitely not a job for Jackson Pollock, it’s a job for the other Arizona painters, guys like us! Get in touch today!