Born in 1949 in Gainesville, Texas and raised on a 900-acre farming and ranching operation in Sivells Bend, Donna Howell-Sickles has always been close to nature and the land around her. In 1972, she earned her BFA at Texas Tech in Lubbock, Texas and embarked on a career in Western art.

Donna Howell-Sickles has taken the image and idea of the Cowgirl beyond charcoal lines and into reality. In the Western art genre, she has been exploring the layers beneath the Cowgirl’s engaging exterior for more than 40 years. Donna, herself, identifies with the self-reliant and hard-working spirit of the Cowgirl. In 2007, she was inducted into the Cowgirl Hall of Fame by the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame in Fort Worth, Texas. Donna’s work is a part of the art collections of over 16 museums, including the Buffalo Bill Center of the West, the Booth Western Art Museum, the Tucson Museum of Fine Art, Western Spirit: Scottsdale’s Museum of the West, the C.M. Russell Museum, Museum of Western Art, and the National Museum of Wildlife Art.