Featured Artists

Each issue of Southwest Art magazine features in-depth profiles of top artists in the West and beyond. Browse this section to read interesting and compelling stories about artists’ lives and their techniques, artistic styles, and sources of inspiration. Each article is accompanied by plenty of images to show examples of the artists’ works—including sculpture and paintings in oil, pastel, watercolor, and acrylic, and featuring subjects from western landscapes to cityscapes, figures, wildlife and animal art, still lifes, and more.

Len Chmiel, Worth the Wait, oil, 23 x 29.

The Standard Bearers | Len Chmiel

From his perch atop a mesa in Colorado, Len Chmiel has a view of mountains in every direction. Not a bad place to call home for a landscape artist known for his mastery of composition and for bringing an abstracted vision to a representational genre.
Doug Hyde, Arizona Wildlife, wax model, 4 x 18.

The Standard Bearers | Doug Hyde

Recent years have brought Doug Hyde honors befitting his nearly 50-year career as a sculptor celebrating his Nez Perce, Assiniboine, and Chippewa heritage. In 2019, he completed an installation in Joseph, OR, called THE RETURN, one of the works he is most proud of to date.
Gary Ernest Smith, Looking West, oil, 40 x 48.

The Standard Bearers | Gary Ernest Smith

Gary Ernest Smith has long been known for his eloquently pared-down depictions of the present-day West: rural men and women, their faces obscured; vast farmlands with a few buildings dotting distant horizons; rocky desertscapes, cropped and reduced to breathtakingly stark geometries. “I’ve always looked for different viewpoints or perspectives,” he explains.
Sandy Scott, Red-Tailed Hawk at Sappa Creek, bronze, 36 x 28 x 22.

The Standard Bearers | Sandy Scott

The past year and its many disruptions proved challenging for some artists, but sculptor Sandy Scott was not one of them. “Artists were experiencing creative blocks,” Scott says, “but I went on a creative binge.”
Kyle Polzin, Pride of the Plains, oil, 21 x 18.

The Next Generation

In celebration of our 50th anniversary, we turn the spotlight on 10 stars who represent the next generation in western art. They bring fresh, bold perspective to the genre.
Sandy Scott, Red-Tailed Hawk at Sappa Creek, bronze, 36 x 28 x 22.

The Standard Bearers

In celebration of our 50th anniversary, here we honor the 10 living painters and sculptors who have been featured most frequently in our pages over the years. They are some of the West's best, defining excellence for decades.