Friends of Western Art Artist of the Year: John Moyers
The Artist of the Year, originally established by the Tucson Festival Society and continued by Friends of Western Art, a community organization dedicated to supporting awareness of and promoting Western Art, has acknowledged some of the most highly celebrated artists of the American West. In recent years, the Tucson Museum of Art has organized an exhibition to coincide with the Friends of Western Art’s honored artist.
The 2008 Friends of Western Art Artist of the Year exhibition at the Tucson Museum of Art will survey the work of the John Moyers. John the son of William Moyers, an early member of the Cowboy Artists of America, spent most of his childhood in the artistic environment of New Mexico absorbing the culture of the American West. With the encouragement of his father, Moyers aspired to become a painter. Moyers received his formal academic training at the Laguna Beach School of Art and later the California Institute for the Arts. Honing his skills in the commercial art field, Moyers worked as an animator for the Walt Disney studios.
Wanting to break away from commercial art and dedicate himself to a career as a painter, in 1979, Moyers accepted an invitation from the western painter Robert Lougheed to visit the Okanagan Game Farm in British Columbia to study game and paint from nature. Lougheed, widely known as a mentor to many artists, shared his philosophy on painting from nature with Moyers. The experience signaled a turning point in Moyers artistic development. Under Lougheed’s tutelage Moyers concentrated on composition, color, and developed the plein-air style which is evident in his work today.
In 1994, Moyers was elected to the Cowboy Artists of America and has won numerous awards at exhibitions hosted by institutions including the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum, the Gilcrease Museum, and the Phoenix Art Museum.
