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Patrick “Pat” Floyd Garrett (1850-1908) lived a tragic life of bad decisions and infamous friends. Garrett began his career in the Old West as a buffalo hunter, then progressed to local government. In 1880, a $500 bounty was set for the capture of Henry McCarty (also known as William Harrison Bonney and Billy the Kid) and Garrett rose to the occasion. As newly elected Sheriff of Lincoln County, New Mexico in 1881, Garrett and a band of men found McCarty and his men and forced them to surrender. Garrett arrested McCarty and brought him to the courthouse, but before he could be executed Billy escaped, killing two prison guards in his flight.
Determined this time to get it right, Garrett hunted down McCarty at the home of McCarty’s friend Pete Maxwell. In the darkness of Maxwell’s house, Garrett shot McCarty through the heart and killed him. Unfortunately, the execution of the wanted criminal earned Garrett neither renown nor reward, for Billy had become a local celebrity and the bounty had been for a live capture.
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Born in Redlands, California, Don Crowley got started in the world of art at
such an early age that he couldn’t remember a time when he wasn’t drawing.
During his school years in Santa Ana, he read everything he could about art
and spent every spare moment developing his skill. Service in the Merchant
Marines and the Navy enabled Crowley to enroll in the Art Center School of
Design in Los Angeles under the G.I. Bill. Five years later, he moved to New
York and began a successful career in commercial illustration.
After more than twenty years in the Northeast, Crowley felt restricted by the
narrow range of his commercial work and began to work more extensively in fine
art. In 1973, he accepted an invitation to exhibit his paintings at a gallery
in Arizona. He was so taken by the area that he decided to continue his career
there.
With his family, Crowley settled in the Southwest, where he began forging a
relationship with a group of Native Americans. Although he is recognized and
respected for many different kinds of paintings, he is best known for his
sensitive and skilled portraits of these Apache and Paiute women and children.
Crowley visits the San Carlos Reservation annually to continue chronicling the
lives of his subjects. “I hope that my work expresses the beauty and dignity
of these very special people,” he says. Through Crowley’s work, his collectors
have watched his subjects grow over the years. Occasionally you’ll see a rare
Don Crowley image of a cowboy or a cattle drive, but what he is best known for
are handsome, clear portraits of Native American women and children, not to
mention their colorful Pendleton blankets. In fact, long-time collectors of
his work may see the same subject as both a girl and woman, wearing the
colorful, geometric-patterned blanket that was handed down from generation to
generation.
In 1995, he was elected to the Cowboy Artists of America and, in his first
year, won the CA Gold Medal for Drawing. The following year he was awarded
four awards: a Gold Medal for Oil, Silver Medal for Drawing, the CA Award and
the Kieckhefer Best in Show Award. With customary dry humor, Crowley termed
this accomplishment very encouraging.
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