Though a studio painter, my work is the result of frequent travels in the Southwest, as well as in other countries. My paintings are based upon sites that capture my heart and imagination.
Many of my favorite places are found in New Mexico and as a result, I return there requently to experience the changing of seasons and changes made by its' inhabitants. Each time I visit, I see these places with 'new eyes'. The shapes and colors that spread out before me are always new. I am fasinated with how people have settled into this country. There is a spirit in these mountains and valleys of New Mexico. There is a rugged sense of power and history that moves me.
My paintings are not just landscapes, but include settlements of ranches and villages that have established over time.
Barbara Gurwitz attended Boston University School of Fine Arts as a Theater Major where she discovered the Art Department on the top floor of the Fine Arts Building. After that, there was no turning back. She left college, took an apartment in the most seedy and inexpensive part of Boston in order to devote herself to painting, primarily learning by talking with other artists and observing what they were working on and visiting the Boston Museum.
Besides occasional temporary jobs in various offices or waiting on tables, she continued this pursuit over the ensuing 40 years, gradually selling her work privately, and eventually finding a number of galleries that considered her original response to the world around her worth giving exhibition space. In 1979 she moved to Arizona and settled in Tubac where she opened a studio gallery until 1988. In 1989 she joined the Karin Newby Gallery of Tubac while she herself moved north of Tucson to the Desert House of Prayer where she was invited to be on the staff as Artist in Residence. It is during her two years there that she met her husband, William Hall. Upon their marriage in 1991 they moved into an area south of Tucson. At that time she joined the Wilde Meyer Galleries of Scottsdale and Tucson who continue to represent her to this day. She exhibits also in Michigan and Florida.
Over the years her paintings have been included in various juried exhibits gaining several awards, and she continues to be included in invitationals in the area. Her work has been collected by the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C., the Tucson Museum of Art, and the Phippen Museum in Prescott, Arizona, as well as numerous corporate and private collections throughout the United States and abroad.
In 2002-2003 she was sponsored to participate in the Tucson-Pima Arts Council "Ponies Del Pueblo" Project which raised funds for various charities and non-profits in the Tucson Area. Her full size pony, "Southwest Journey" was auctioned in support of the Arizona Opera Company.
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