Western Art News
Artwork by Ed Mell appears on an album cover and along a prominent road in Phoenix.
It was a busy summer for Ed Mell. In a one-two punch of announcements, the Phoenix painter revealed his artwork was being used as public art for a new hotel in his hometown and then, just days later, announced his artwork would serve as the cover for Hijos del Sol, a new album by Hermanos Gutiérrez.
Mell started his career as an illustrator in New York, before returning to Arizona to become a fine artist, so these kinds of projects are not uncommon for the modernist landscape painter. Most recently, in 2017, Mell was the set designer for Arizona Opera’s production of Riders of the Purple Sage.
“These sorts of things are always fun,” Mell says. “It helps that I get to work with some great people, like [architect] John Kitchell, who was the one [who] talked to me a couple years ago about the hotel project he was working on. His projects are always stellar and I’m happy to work with him.”
The Phoenix artwork, at the ARRIVE Hotel, include large 7-by7-foot-square reproductions of
Mell’s landscape paintings that line the property wall along Camelback Road, one of Phoenix’s most iconic streets. The works range from older pieces to more recent paintings. The Hijos del Sol album cover features the work Sonoran Kings,a recent painting done by the artist in 2019. Sonoran Kings also appeared on the May 2019 cover of Western Art Collector.