David Halbach (American b. 1931)

A member of the Cowboy Artists of America since 1985, he has lived in Arizona beginning 1975 and later in the Sierras of California. In 1975, he also won the prestigious Silver Medal at the National Cowboy Hall of Fame show for his watercolor "Story Teller." In 1996 he completed a project for "National Geographic."

He attended the Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles, and his teachers were the acclaimed Millard Sheets and Rex Brandt. Chouinard was where he first encountered plein-air painting and later he said that "Painting from life is absolutely necessary in my art" ("Southwest Art" 10/98). He travels from his home in northern California to western reenactments and to Indian reservations in Arizona.