Ed Mell, Cascading Canyon Storm, oil, 40 x 48.
Four decades ago, Ed Mell left a flourishing illustration career in New York City and returned home to Arizona to pursue his dream of fine art. In addition to talent, Mell had a little luck on his side: Susan Hallsten McGarry, then the editor of Southwest Art, spotted Mell’s paintings in an exhibition. She did a story on Mell in the September 1982 issue, and its cover featured his graphic depiction of rock formations. “It jumpstarted my career,” Mell says. “It made an incredible difference.”
Flash forward to 2021, and the art world is still taking notice of Mell’s work. Earlier this year, his painting CASCADING CANYON STORM won the Purchase Award at the Autry Museum’s Masters of the American West show. Soon after, a 12-painting show at his Phoenix gallery sold out in 90 minutes.
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- Ed Mell, Nature’s Stature, oil, 42 x 42.
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- Ed Mell, Clouds Over Pickett Post Mountain, oil, 36 x 48.
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- Ed Mell, Cloud Lighting, oil, 60 x 60.
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- Ed Mell, Clearing Fields, oil, 18 x 24.
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- Ed Mell, Diamond Bloom, oil, 25 x 22.
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- Ed Mell, Canted Cloud, oil, 38 x 52.
Mell’s vibrant panoramas are noteworthy for casting a modernist eye on the southwestern landscape. Inspired by the Sonoran Desert and the Colorado Plateau regions, they feature sharp angles and stylized shapes reminiscent of French Cubist painter Georges Braque. Although he began with landscape as subject matter early in his career, today his work has expanded to includes images of cowboys, longhorn cattle, and horses, and he has also translated his signature style into sculpture. But he is best known for capturing the ever-changing light and energy of the spacious western skies.
Currently the artist is in the planning stages for a sculpture commissioned by the town of Paradise Valley, AZ, where he lives, and in June he’s participating for the first time in the prestigious Prix de West Invitational at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, OK. Mell is represented by Owings Gallery, Santa Fe, NM; Medicine Man Gallery, Tucson, AZ; and Ed Mell Gallery, Phoenix, AZ. –Bonnie Gangelhoff
This story appeared in the May 2021 issue of Southwest Art magazine.