Artist Joseph Carragher has spent a lifetime painting in oils, watercolors and pastels, with his first oil painting produced by age 11. Early on, he was awarded a scholarship at the Carnegie Institute of Pittsburgh for highly talented students.

After high school, he decided on engineering as a career and is a professional engineer (inactive) in the state of Arizona. While attending the University of Pittsburgh, Mr. Carragher accepted commissions that helped pay for college expenses.

His engineering profession took Mr. Carragher to long-term assignments around the world, including the South of France, the Republic of South Africa, Chile and Paris. While on these assignments, Mr. Carragher was afforded the opportunity to further his travels throughout several continents. The locations and the people he encountered during his travels provided great inspiration for the artist. Paintings from these travels form a significant part of Mr. Carragher's work. L'Arlesienne, Mistral, Baguette for Breakfast, Zebra Drought, Johannesburg Youth, Plaza de Armas, Santiago, and a Walk on la Costenara are examples of these works.

During the seventies, while residing in the San Francisco Bay area, Mr. Carragher studied life drawing and oil painting at the College of Marin in California. On assignment to the Republic of South Africa he studied with Dorothy Reynolds, who attempted to "convert him to impressionism." Her blithe criticism was that he painted too much like Andrew Wyeth. While the comparison is dubious, it was only an encouragement to continue developing his style.

After retirement, Mr. Carragher began a second career as a full-time artist when wife Barbara presented him with a gift certificate to the BRIO Fine Arts Center in Scottsdale. Since first attending classes there in February, 2005, Mr. Carragher has completed 48 oils, acrylics and pastels.

In October 2005, Mr. Carragher was invited to exhibit at the opening of the new Arts Theater at Paradise Valley Community College. For that occasion, he also painted the portrait of actor Chris Vaglio as Samuel Pepys, which appeared in the play "World Aflame" at its world premier.

As exhibitor at the BRIO Fine Arts Center in February 2006, his painting, Congress Street, Tucson, ca. 1905, was awarded Best of Show.

Mr. Carragher exhibited 33 paintings in a month-long one-man show at the BRIO Fine Arts Center in September 2006. This show, along with a bio of Mr. Carragher was featured in the September 6-12, 2006 Sonoran News in an article by Curtis Riggs.

Recent work has concentrated primarily on his Historic Arizona series in which Mr. Carragher employs historic Arizona photography to translate the images to full color on canvas. Historic Arizona paintings include Unloading Wool at Holbrook, AZ, ca. 1902, Motoring on Apache Trail, ca. 1920 and others. Other current works include portraiture of family and friends in oils and acrylics.

Mr. Carragher currently resides in Scottsdale, where he attends the Brio Fine Arts Center, studying oil painting with Craig Birch, acrylic painting with Susan Falcon-Hargraves and pastel painting with Donna Stenger.

Mr. Carragher accepts commissions for portraiture as well as general subject matter. Interested parties may contact Mr. Carragher at (480) 596-3653 or at jacarragher@cox.net.