09/17/2026
🏜️ “There’s something about the desert sky that is magical. You can get lost in it.”
Today is the late Ed Mell's (1942–2024) birthday.
Mell was a giant in contemporary art of the American West. His 50-year career was a love letter to the land, expressing a unique play between the styles of realism and abstraction.
Born in Phoenix, Arizona, Mell studied graphic art in college and then moved to New York City, working as a commercial designer in one of the city's top ad agencies. The turning point came in 1970, when he spent the summer teaching art on the Hopi reservation. The sweeping Arizona vistas changed his perspective, and a few years later, he traded his fast-paced city life for an old grocery store in downtown Phoenix that he converted to a studio.
“My income was cut by a third, but my quality of life tripled,” he said in a 2022 interview with The Saturday Evening Post. “And I learned that sometimes you have to leave a place and then come back to begin to appreciate it.”
Back in 2016, our Chief Curator, Emily Kapes, visited Mell at his studio and gallery. 10 years later, visitors will have the chance to see nine of his original works in our Frontier Gallery for the artist spotlight "Ed Mell: Legacy in Light."
This spotlight opens Saturday, September 19 and will be on view through January 10, 2027.
First photo courtesy of John O'Neill.
