Photos by Christiaan Blok Joan Cawley Gallery Director Marilynn Spiegel stands among artworks indicative of the Southwest, including the wall-hung spirit doll Pootanka by Philonese, composed of a deer hide garment with beads and a feather headdress.

JOAN CAWLEY GALLERY

Principals—Marilynn Spiegel, director (pictured); Kevin Cawley, president and son of the gallery’s founder

Opened—1983

Location—7135 E. Main St., Old Town Scottsdale

Hours—Summer hours, 10 a.m.-4 p.m., Wednesday-Saturday, or by appointment; regular hours, 10 a.m.-5 p.m., Monday-Saturday, and 10 a.m.-9 p.m. on Thursdays for Scottsdale ArtWalk

Phone—(480) 947-3548

Web site—jcgltd.com/gallery

History—Joan Cawley, the gallery’s namesake founder and its president emeritus, is widely considered an important educator and champion of Native American and Southwest art. With degrees in both anthropology and journalism, she opened art galleries in Santa Fe and Wichita, Kansas, in the early 1970s under the name White Buffalo Gallery. She later moved farther west to create the Arizona site, and personalized its collection with her name. Along with vibrant contemporary Southwest art offerings, the gallery continues Cawley’s fine-art publishing, which she began in 1976 with a poster of an R.C. Gorman painting titled Woman With Red Belt.

Specialty—The gallery’s collection mixes Native American folk art, depictions of desert flora and fauna, Hispanic scenes of family and worship, and more in what Spiegel calls “an intermingling of the sacred and the whimsical in Southwest art.” These themes are expressed in oil, acrylic and watercolor paintings, bronze sculptures, works in ceramics and metal, textiles and gourds.

Artists represented—Among the gallery’s 100-plus artists are Jim Adkins, Patrick Coffaro, Albert Dreher, Carol Ruff Franza, Alvin Gill-Tapia, R.C. Gorman, Carol Grigg, Molly Heizer, Martha Kennedy, Lawrence W. Lee, David and Su Douglas Manje, Philonese, Amy Ringholz, Robert Rivera, Francisco Romero, Adin Shade, Fritz Scholder, Michael Swearngin, Rufino Tamayo, Frank Ybarra and Francisco Zuniga.