The Artist

 William (Bill) Ahrendt is a Master Artist focusing on the “American West” and much more…

Bill was born in 1933 and is still painting commissions and a poster for the World’s Oldest Continuous Rodeo contest in Payson, AZ.

“American West” art has provided a homeland of hope and freedom as well-as a symbol of American greatness for all of us Americans and for all the people in other countries.

The “American West”, it’s stories, people and grandeur will always remain the central subject of my paintings. 

View paintings at: www.WilliamAhrendt.com

For Commissions, private lessons or workshops, contact Shari and Bill at:

ahrendtbill111@gmail.com OR (480) 390-9607

Giclee’s are reproductions of Bill’s originals and are printed in custom sizes by Bill’s wife, Shari Ahrendt. 

To order your personalized Giclee please contact Shari at:  

azgiclees@me.com or azshari@me.com OR (480) 390-9607

William (Bill) Ahrendt Education:

Bachelor of Fine Art Degree at Cleveland Institute of Art, studied at Los Angeles Art Center, Academy of Creative Art in Munich, Germany and received a Master of Arts Degree in Art History at Arizona State University.

He was also the contributing editor for Arizona Highways with his paintings, drawings and articles on the history of Arizona and was published in over 40 issues.

Bill’s paintings are found in collections and museums throughout the USA like the: Booth Museum in Cartersville, GA, Presisio Museum in Tubca,  AZ, Scottsdale Western Spirit Museum in Scottsdale, AZ and the Museum of the Pacific Northwest in Medford, Oregon.

Bill’s paintings, drawings and articles have been published in numerous publications including:

Arizona Highways, National Geographic, Southwest Art, Art of The West, Northland Press,

Phoenix Home and Gardens, Arabians, Cowboys and Indians.

William Harry Ahrendt was born on the last day of February 1933 in Cleveland, Ohio. At age seven, he began drawing, having announced to his family that he was going to become an artist. Unwaveringly, he put art at the top of his priorities through his public school years and through the Los Angeles Art Center School and the Cleveland Institute of Art, Ohio, from which he graduated magna cum laude in 1956. Winning the Institute’s prized travel scholarship at graduation allowed him to tour all the major museums of Europe from a studio base, which he established in Rome, Italy, and later Munich, Germany.

Taking residence in Germany, there followed a wide variety of art-related occupations, ranging from serving as the Arts and Crafts Director for the U.S. Army in Giessen, Germany, to directing the advertising department for the U.S. Air Force European Exchange Program in Wiesbaden.

During his 11 years in Europe, his study of the work and techniques of the Old Masters remained his primary focus. In 1965, Ahrendt passed his entrance examination at the Munich Academy of Fine Arts, where he studied in the Max Doerner Department of Painting Technology. There he scrutinized, researched, and copied originals by Fra Angelico, Rubens, Van Dyck, Titian, and Velazquez.

In 1968, Ahrendt’s European period of study ended, and he returned to the United States, where he completed his Masters Degree in Art History at Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona.

Throughout the following decade, Ahrendt was a member of the Art Department faculty of Glendale Community College in Glendale, Arizona, where he became the Art Department Chairperson.

In 1976, he designed and began construction on his studio home in the canyon country of central Arizona, among the pine-forested canyon walls outside the small community of Pine.

Since 1979, after having resigned from his position at Glendale College, Ahrendt has worked in his Pine studio, supporting himself, his wife, his family through the sale of his art. He has, throughout the past years, acted as contributing editor for Arizona Highways Magazine, in which his drawings, oils, and tempera paintings have interpreted the full range of southwestern sagas from Spanish exploration to American occupation. He painted riverboats, stagecoaches, horses, saloon and ranching scenes, gunfights, missions, epic marches, humble settlements, and portraits of many historical American natives and their white counterparts.

These painted episodic adventures into the history of the American West, exposed in one of America’s premier regional journals, have contributed to a following among lovers of paintings of American history, particularly of the 16th through 19th-century theater of events west of the Mississippi. The following of art buyers continues to grow.

Today, Ahrendt spends the majority of his time doing what his life has led him to love most, painting. He works daily at his easel, primarily commissioning paintings on the history of the American West.

Click on Portfolio to view recent paintings.

For commissions, private lessons, or workshops, contact Shari and Bill at ahrendtbill111@gmail.com or (480) 390-9607.

Giclee's (reproductions of Bill's original work) contact Shari at azshari@me.com or (480) 390-9607.