Bev Doolittle

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Bev Doolittle (born January 10 into a large family, 1947) is an American artist working mainly in watercolor paints. She paints scenes of the American West that feature themes of Native American life, wild animals, horses, and landscapes. Doolittle's technical mastery of the watercolor medium has brought her notice since her early work as a graphic artist and illustrator. She attended college at the Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles, where she met her husband, Jay Doolittle. The Doolittles, after a brief career as graphic artists, becoming "traveling artists" and drove in a motorhome around the American southwest, painting scenes of the landscape as they went. It was during this period that Bev's expansive paintings of the American Western landscape and its wildlife began to develop and soon after, she began to portray Native Americans—often including them alongside animal themes.

Doolittle has become a popular artist in the United States, and her original paintings and prints are collected widely by those interested in the Western themes she portrays. Realistic Western art has conventionally been dominated by oil painting, and Doolittle was instrumental in bringing watercolors into the genre, and garnering respect for this medium from collectors of Western art.

Doolittle has also co-authored and illustrated several books. She has long been interested in the plight of Native Americans, wild animals, and ecological and environmental issues and her books—like her paintings—focus on these issues.

[edit] Further reading

  • The Art of Bev Doolittle. Bev Doolittle and Elise Maclay. New York: Bantam. 1990