ABOUT THE EXHIBITION
“It is a privilege to walk in beauty.” – Jim Waid
For more than six decades, Jim Waid has developed one of the most distinctive painting practices to emerge from the American Southwest. Presented nearly 50 years after his work first appeared at Phoenix Art Museum, Into the Canyon: Jim Waid’s American West is the first major survey on the oeuvre of the Oklahoma-born, Tucson-based artist and his lifelong pursuit of abstracting the flora and landscapes of the American West.
Spanning more than five decades, featured paintings reveal the artist’s sustained exploration of perception, natural structure, and the sensory experience of landscape, while affirming Waid’s central place within a broader history of postwar painting and underscoring his singular vision of American abstraction rooted in the Sonoran Desert.
Header: Jim Waid, Echo, 1979 (detail). Acrylic on canvas. Bequest of Mr. And Mrs. William A. Small, Jr. Photo: Mike Lundgren
Jim Waid, Meadow, 1986-2025. Acrylic on canvas. Courtesy of the Artist. Photo: Tim Fuller
EXHIBITION SPONSORS
Into The Canyon: Jim Waid’s American West is organized by Phoenix Art Museum and curated by Jeremy Mikolajczak, The Sybil Harrington Director and CEO of Phoenix Art Museum, with assistance from Dawn Berg, Curatorial Assistant and Publications Coordinator, and Katie Jones-Weinert, Digital Assets Manager.
The exhibition is made possible by Presenting Sponsor The Carl and Marilynn Thoma Foundation and Major Sponsor Lee and Mike Cohn. Additional support is provided by Jane and Mal Jozoff.
Contemporary art exhibitions and projects are made possible in part by the Rob Walton, Jordan Rose, and Rose Law Group Fund for Contemporary Art.
All exhibitions at Phoenix Art Museum are underwritten by the Phoenix Art Museum Exhibition Excellence Fund, founded by The Opatrny Family Foundation with additional major support provided by Joan Cremin.
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