Best Of Tucson®

Best Fine Art Gallery

Etherton Gallery

Proprietor Terry Etherton delivered a knockout in the season's first round with Ojos Bien Abiertos/Eyes Wide Open, an exhibition showcasing Alice Leora Briggs' black-and-white sgraffito drawings of the hell going on in Ciudad Juarez. The haunting works were illustrations from Briggs' border book Dreamland, co-authored with Charles Bowden. The rest of the season kept up the pace. Jamey Stillings' daredevil color photos of the new bridge over the Colorado River near the Hoover Dam entranced art-lovers and engineers alike. François Robert's photos of guns shaped out of bones struck a chilling note right after Tucson's January slaughter. Next, Gail Marcus-Orlen restored the gallery to beauty with her luminous paintings, set above Flo Perkins' glistening glass desert of 3-D cacti. If there were any doubt that perennial winner Etherton is the town's best gallery, the summer show proved it: Masters of American Photography was a fabulous cavalcade of photographic history, its masterpieces drawn entirely from Etherton's own holdings.

Runners up:

2. Madaras Gallery

1535 E. Broadway Blvd.

623-4000

3001 E. Skyline Drive, No. 101

615-3001

3. Conrad Wilde Gallery

439 N. Sixth Ave., No. 171

622-8997