A man of appetite and energy, John Hilton had an outsized persona and knew how to use it. He is arguably the most famous name in the Smoketree School, not for his paintings alone but for showing the others how…
The Smoketree School of desert art enjoyed its greatest flowering at the Desert Magazine art gallery on Highway 111 in Palm Desert. While the gallery is long gone, the building (it most recently housed LG’s Steakhouse) has looked much the…
With Desertscapes behind us for another year, the theme of desert-influenced art continues in these exhibits locally and elsewhere in the West. Sacred Places—Watercolour Diaries from the American Southwest opens May 18, 2012 (through July 14) at Gerald Peters Gallery…
The former Borrego Valley Foods store, a mid-century modern building prominently located on Christmas Circle in Borrego Springs, has been purchased by the Borrego Art Institute for a new gallery featuring plein air desert artists. With Borrego’s vast desert wilderness,…
March and April 2012 are packed with desert art events crowned by Desertscapes, the third annual Valleywide celebration of desert art. Participants include the City of Palm Desert, the Walter N. Marks Center for the Arts at College of the…
Terry Masters is the most respected name in desert art, but it’s not always easy to locate either the man or his work. While other artists rush to openings or mingle over martinis, he’s likely to be off alone painting…
There is nothing like a train to accent the space and scale of the desert. The two go together just about as well as deserts and smoketrees. One man who knew this perhaps better than anyone was Richard Steinheimer, one…
Long Beach photographer Michael E. Gordon is a champion of overlooked deserts, preferring the quiet corners of the Mojave to the more obvious drama of places like the Grand Canyon. Now he takes on a similarly ignored and yet most…
Eric Merrell continues to be a primo ambassador for desert art with his new solo exhibition at American Legacy Fine Arts in Pasadena: Romance of the West—and the Western Spirit, July 16-August 13. The opening reception is Saturday, July 16, from…
Oregon photographer Lin Moore explores the properties of desert rock in an exhibit at Maturango Museum in Ridgecrest through May 4th: “This Goodly Frame: Reveries Among the Origins of Order.” Moore has written about the link between poetry and photography…
