Tucson has been an art town for years, a haven for artists and art lovers alike. From the big museums downtown and at the University of Arizona, to the upscale galleries in the Foothills to the small edgy warehouses on Sixth Street, and the newer venues in Barrio Viejo, there’s plenty to choose no matter what your fancy.
University of Arizona
Center for Creative Photography
“The Linda McCartney Retrospective”
The highlight of the season is a major exhibition of Linda McCartney’s wonderful photography. As a young woman in the 1960s, she emerged as a hot-shot photographer of rock ‘n’ roll musicians. Later, when she married Paul McCartney, she started doing many pictures of her children and of the beautiful lands around their country home in Scotland. She also loved to do photos on the streets of people who were not famous.
Some Tucsonans have known for years that the McCartneys have had a ranch on the east side of the city. But many don’t know that the New York-born McCartney lived in Tucson long before she met Paul. She came to Tucson to study art history at the University of Arizona. During her short time here, she met Hazel Archer, an extraordinary photographer and teacher. McCartney made her first photos under Archer’s guidance at the Tucson Arts Center, which later became the Tucson Museum of Art. McCartney would always say, “It was Hazel who made me a photographer.”
The Center for Creative Photography at the university is at long last mounting a show honoring her work, featuring 176 photos from the family archive in London. It’s McCartney’s first retrospective in North America. The show is in three sections: family and domestic life, experimental, and the popular portraits of musicians and others. Keep your eyes open for the many events that the center is planning. Runs Saturday, Feb. 25, to Saturday, Aug. 5
“Woman-Ochre”
Across the way at the University Museum of Art, the dazzling “Woman-Ochre” stands in splendor. If you have not visited her then get thee to her heavily guarded perch. As everyone knows, this abstract painting by Willem de Kooning, done in 1955, was stolen from the museum in 1985 but recovered in a shop in Silver City in 2017 and restored at the Getty. It returned to its home in Tucson last fall. Closes Saturday, May 20.
The museum has built a whole show, “Abstract Perspectives in Mid-Century Art,” around de Kooning and his contemporaries, with a large collection of abstract paintings from the same period, roughly 1950 to 1970. Among the artists who are in the show are Elaine de Kooning, Lee Krasner. Mark Rothko and Jackson Pollock. That show closes Saturday, March 25.
artmuseum.arizona.edu/
The Arizona State Museum
ASM, also on campus, is sparkling with Southwest native jewelry for the exhibition, “Ancient — Modern: Continuity and Innovation in Southwest Native Jewelry,” which closes Saturday, Oct. 28.
Beautifully put together by curator Diane Dittimore, more than 70 pieces are on display, created across the ages, from ancient, historic and contemporary times. Indigenous artisans created these jewels to adorn themselves and their loved ones. Their styles vary and denote different regions and practices. Many used shell, silver and turquoise.
Another show at the museum, “Sámi Dreams,” explores the history of the indigenous people of northern Europe, with photographs by Randall Heyman. It runs Saturday, March 18, to Saturday, June 17.
Downtown
Etherton Gallery
Etherton Gallery shows off two excellent Tucson artists in the new exhibit “Chris Rush and Ellen McMahon: Again with the Real.”
At one time, Rush was mostly known in town for a giant baby mural. Now, in this big show of his paintings and drawings, he covers many of his styles, from remakes of 19th century documents to compassionate portraits of children. In this show, he has another baby, this one flying happily over a lake and woods.
Ellen McMahon has created two melancholy series. “Lost Language of the Desert” uses a letterpress to make letters and symbols, known and unknown, and colored in gray and red. “What Is Lost and What Remains” features moody landscapes on paper, colored in ink, chalk or pastel. Closes Saturday, April 15.
Andrew Smith Gallery
Next door, an excellent photography gallery is showing another Tucson artist: Michael Hyatt. For years, Hyatt has made images of people of all kinds; his pictures of desperate migrants in the desert led to a successful book, “Along the Migrant Trail.” The new show, “Crossroads: The Music & Streets of Los Angeles 1969 –1981” takes us to gritty Downtown neighborhoods. He made beautiful black and white pictures of musicians and sex workers, drinkers and gospel singers and the down-and-out. Hyatt’s own grandfather was a regular on Skid Row. His new book, “Fifth and Wall Street: Skid Row, Los Angeles in the 1970s,” can be purchased at the gallery. Closes Thursday, March 30.
Philabaum Glass Gallery
A new exhibition at Philabaum has the enticing name: “Stories Reimagined.” The four glass artists don’t disappoint.
Sandy Pendleton of Cave Creek and Pinetop makes fused glass pieces that interestingly have cloth and textures inside. Phoenix artist Andrew Shultz is inspired by southwestern landscapes and colors. Look for one of his lovely pots of sky blue, desert yellows and sienna. Richard Satava of Chico, California, is a master of glass; he wields his wares with gleaming glass jellyfish and glass petroglyphs.
Jim Scheller uses kilns for bowls whose designs are somehow between paleolithic and midcentury modern. The longtime gallery, founded by glass artist Tom Philabaum, is now happily owned and directed by Alison Harvey and Dylan Harvey. Closes Saturday, June 24.
Tucson Museum of Art
All winter, the museum has been showing the American West from a new point of view. In “More Than: Expanding Artists Identities from the American West,” you’ll find African American cowboys on their horses captured in photography. Among other photographic works is a giant installation of six life-sized native women wearing traditional skirts and contemporary black T-shirts, each inscribed with the name of her tribal nation. Closes Sunday, March 19.
In early February, a companion show opened, “Enduring Legacies: The James T. Bialac Indigenous Art Collection,” with paintings, prints and works on paper by Native American artists from around the country. Tohono O’Odham Michael Chiago, a favorite in Tucson, is represented with a painting of tribal baskets. Be on the lookout for the late Julian Martinez’ charming watercolor of a barnyard battle between a skunk and a rooster. Martinez was from San Ildefonso Pueblo in New Mexico. Closes Sunday, Feb. 25, 2024.
Later in the spring, fans can visit the Arizona Biennial 2023. The popular juried exhibition brings in the work of artists from all over the state. Runs Saturday, April 1, to Sunday Oct. 1.
MOCA Museum of Contemporary Art
The latest MOCA show is inspired by centuries-old Indigenous art from South America. Among the ancient peoples of the Andes, webs of knotted cords called quipus were used to record community histories. Even after the Spanish banned them in the sixteenth century, local peoples continued to make them. Now artist Cecilia Vicuña has reimagined them as an artform. Vicuña, from Chile, invited people and organizations in Tucson to gather everything from discarded kitchen waste to alley-way junk for their own “Sonoran Quipu.” The piece is a multi-media sculpture, with videos and soundscapes. According to the gallery, the artist “invites viewers to consider the beauty and precarity of our world, and our interconnected relationships to the environment and to each other.” Closes Sunday, Sept. 10.
West
Louis Carlos Bernal Gallery at Pima College West
The Bernal Gallery is bursting with 19 painted panels of the Grand Canyon. Each gorgeous painting, 7 feet high, represents one hour of the day’s 24. From the pinks of sunrise to the golden shadows of sunset to the darkness of night, the colorful shadows and light move across the landscape. Five of the original 24 panels are not in the show, but who’s counting!
The creator of this masterpiece, Joseph DiGiorgio, painted the work in pointillism, a style that makes images with colorful dots. The Brooklyn artist (1931-2000) typically worked in the pointillist style and often showed his paintings in Tucson.
DiGiorgio gave the whole of “The Grand Canyon” as a gift to the Tucson Museum of Art years ago. A portion of the work was first exhibited in New York City, but has been shown in its entirety just once, here in Tucson, at the museum in 1997. Thanks to a collaboration between TMA and the Bernal Gallery, now, at last, it is being shown again in Tucson after more than a quarter century. Closes Friday, March 10.
Pointillist fans who come to see the painting in early March can also see a student performance of “Sunday in the Park with George,” a play that honors George Seurat, a French master of the style. Runs Thursday, March 2, to Sunday, March 12.
Also, over at the Visual Arts Gallery on campus, an exhibition honors Pima College professors the late Darla Masterson, known for innovative monotone landscapes, and Phillip Bellomo, for his ceramics. They helped found the Visual Arts Department. Closes Friday, March 24.
Warehouse District
Raices Taller 222 Art Gallery
Raices Gallery opens the spring with two shows, jointly titled “Historias, Lugar, y Tiempo/ Histories, Place, and Time.” John Salgado, the gallery’s co-director, said he is excited to bring in nine UA undergraduates from the College of Fine Arts. When Raices started more than 25 years ago, student artists were among the first to be shown there. In the new batch, all have studied with Alejandro Macias, an exciting new member of the faculty. The second of the two shows presents the work of established members of the collective in the large room to the back. They have happily given over the front gallery to these promising young artists. Open only 1 to 5 p.m. Sundays. Closes Saturday, March 11.
Contreras Gallery and Jewelry
contrerashousefineart.com/index.html
Contreras Gallery, up the road from Raices Taller, is staging “Organic,” a three-woman show of abstract works. Sylvia Garland and Ann Tracy, regulars in the gallery, both seem to conjure the ocean. Garland’s richly colored paintings suggest tidepools and the ocean deep. Tracy also seems enamored by the sea. One of her pieces, to my eye, conjures the shoreline in Ireland. Eve McEwen is the guest artist. The highlight of her work in the show is a southwestern church, painted all in white, with signs asking for peace and unity. Closes Saturday, March 25
Later in spring, Contreras brings in nine artists for “A Group Show, No Theme, Any Medium” from Saturday, April 8, to Saturday, May 27.
Steinfeld Warehouse
The old Downtown warehouse is filled with small galleries. They include Untitled, Seven-Legged Spider Gallery, and Steinfeld Gallery and Studios. You never know just which ones will be open for their regular Art Walks, but give it try on the first Saturday of every month from 4 to 9 p.m.
Midtown
Everybody Gallery
This avant-garde gallery at the unlikely location of 437 East Grant Road wraps up its current exhibition “Sunsets” this weekend on Saturday, Feb. 18. The show includes works by Amy Granat with Shane Rossi, Sundblad / Granat Films, and DIRT. Starting in March, José Villalobos brings his multimedia and performance works to the gallery. His art explores border cultures and the tensions between traditional and contemporary identities. One piece, “La Agua Que Nos Carga (The Water that Carries Us),” is a water jug encased in barbed wire, a haunting memory for migrants crossing the desert.
Madaras Gallery
madaras.com/collections/diana-madaras-originals
Diana Madaras’ bright watercolors and acrylics are all over Tucson and fans love her saguaros, birds and desert landscapes. Besides her own work, the Madaras Gallery sells paintings, sculpture and photographs by other artists. One is sculptor Al Glann, whose metal horses can be seen along the Loop. Another is Rocky LaRose, a celebrated UA athlete who’s become an accomplished nature photographer.
East Side
Tucson Desert Art Museum
At the museum far east of town, a new photography show “¡Pleibol! In the Barrios and the Big Leagues / En los barrios y las grandes ligas” tells the history of baseball in Latino communities across the country. This exhibition was created in collaboration with the National Museum of American history. As the curators have written, “Latino players helped to make the game what it is today.”
A second show tells the dreadful story of the incarnation of Japanese Americans in camps during World War II. Photographs by Dorothea Lange, Russell Lee and others show the agony of those who were torn from their homes. Arizona had three camps, the Gila River War Relocation Center near Phoenix, the Poston Internment Camp in Yuma, and the Federal Honor Camp nearby in the Santa Catalina mountains outside Tucson.
Housed within the museum is the Four Corners Gallery, with small works by the Tucson Barrio Painters Group as well as paintings and sculptures by other southwestern artists. Ongoing.
Foothills
Tohono Chul Gallery
Two of the best artists in Tucson — or anywhere else — take the stage at their home base in the old Pueblo with a show at Tohono Chul Gallery. In “Prescience Remains,” according to the gallery statement, both women “exalt the castaway, celebrating the wonder and beauty of nature while confidently looking forward, steadfast in the belief that beauty is found everywhere.”
Kate Breakey is a multimedia artist of photography and hand-coloring, and Barbara Rogers makes brilliantly colored large-sized paintings. Both are known nationally and internationally. Breakey is perhaps best known for her early work, “Small Deaths,” photographs of the beautiful remains of feathered birds made human-sized in hand-colored prints. She also makes gorgeous photographs of the sky, the moon and the clouds over the ocean, and gives them a shine of gold. Rogers paints large oils, with bold planes of color overlayed with images from nature, such as acorns Opens Thursday, Feb. 16.
Jane Hamilton Fine Arts Gallery
Hamilton’s latest show is “Canyons and Cactus,” with Greg Heil and Dawn Sutherland. Both artists paint bright, richly colored oils of familiar western landscapes, many in Northern Arizona. Heil has an eye for architectural forms in mountain canyons, while Sutherland is known for her plein air work in the Grand Canyon. A party celebrates their opening from 4 to 7 p.m. Friday, Feb. 17. This year, the Jane Hamilton Gallery is celebrating 30 years in Tucson.
Settlers West
Settlers West has opened a huge show of tiny paintings, miniatures of the American West by 150 different artists. Closes Saturday, March 4. Starting Saturday, March 25, “Tales of the West,” will showcase six artists. Five works in oils, but Rachel Brownlee draws remarkably realistic images of cowboys and horses in charcoal. Closes Saturday, April 8. A summer show will follow, Saturday, May 6, to Saturday, May 27.
Mark Sublette Medicine Man Gallery
medicinemangallery.com/mark-sublette-biography
The Medicine Man Gallery carries a wide variety of high-end Western and Native American art. On any given day, you may find Louise Serpa photographs of Arizona rodeos, early twentieth century oils of cowboy life by artists like Edward Borein, fine historic Diné blankets, or a painting of a Diné family by contemporary artist, Tony Abeyta. Sublette also is well-known for his collection of Maynard Dixon paintings, prints, and memorabilia, a kind of museum within the gallery.
Tucson Jewish Community Center
Artist Lauri Kaye has for years been making multimedia images of the people she meets in coffee shops and along the streets of Tucson. She gets their permission to make their portraits by using hand drawings, photography, digital coloring, and printing on metal.
Now her “Tucson Portrait Stories” will be the highlight of a fun art happening. On Sunday, March 12, the JJC hosts an afternoon event, with 60 of Kaye’s portraits. Some 15 of their subjects are scheduled to be on hand for what is billed as an interactive festival. Renowned Chef María Mazón, one of those lucky to get her portrait done, will run a tasting for her salsa and chips. Another is Yaqui classical guitarist, Gabriel Ayala, who will give a concert. The fun goes from 1 to 4 p.m. Sunday, March 12. Free for all.
