Picture a prepaid airmail envelope with a few cowboys sketched across the front in pen and watercolor and a small note of the hour it was finished. Sometime between midnight and 5 a.m., Ted DeGrazia picked up whatever paper was within reach and started drawing. He kept the habit going for about twenty years, beginning in 1955.
Those envelopes and postcards now hang at 6300 N. Swan Road in The Midnight Sketches of Ted DeGrazia, one of three exhibits the gallery says will stay up through January 27, 2027. The season leans toward DeGrazia's smaller and more personal work, and the same thinking shows up in the chapel next door, where the foundation chose bare, honest plaster over painted copies of his murals. For anyone planning a visit with family in town for Thanksgiving or December, the gallery's own schedule is the one to go by.
Two shows that already closed are still being listed
In early autumn, a local events roundup dated the week of September 30, 2026, still listed Ted DeGrazia's Unseen Landscapes and DeGrazia Paints the Seri Indians as ongoing. The gallery's pages give September 2, 2026, as the final day for both. Unseen Landscapes brought out watercolors, ink drawings and oil paintings that had been in storage for as long as 75 years, and the museum said some had not been shown since DeGrazia made them. If a friend recommended that show this summer, it has since gone back into storage.
The dates also vary from one listing to the next. The Visit Tucson listing for Saint Francis of Assisi shows a November 25, 2026, end date, while the gallery's August 6 announcement puts all three current shows on the walls through January 27, 2027.
| Exhibit | Where it stands, per the gallery | What other listings show |
|---|---|---|
| Ted DeGrazia's Unseen Landscapes | Closed September 2, 2026 | Listed as ongoing in a late-September roundup |
| DeGrazia Paints the Seri Indians | Closed September 2, 2026 | Listed as ongoing in the same roundup |
| Saint Francis of Assisi | On view through January 27, 2027 | Visit Tucson shows a November 25, 2026, end date |
| The Midnight Sketches of Ted DeGrazia | On view through January 27, 2027 | |
| Ted DeGrazia's Painted Ponies | On view through January 27, 2027 |
Going by the gallery's dates, all three current shows will still be up over Thanksgiving week, the December holidays and the first weeks of the new year.
Three shows built on one artist's long habits
Each fall exhibit follows a subject DeGrazia kept coming back to for decades.
The Midnight Sketches of Ted DeGrazia. These are small pen-and-ink drawings, washed with watercolor, made on prepaid U.S. Mail postcards and envelopes. Many carry time notes placing them between midnight and 5 a.m. At the September 4 opening reception, the gallery called this group "long-hidden works."
Saint Francis of Assisi. Drawings, prints, sculptures and paintings from 1950 to 1978 follow nearly three decades of DeGrazia's work on Saint Francis, with themes of humility, compassion and closeness to the natural world.
Ted DeGrazia's Painted Ponies. This show opened May 29, 2026, and follows the carousel through work made from 1948 to 1975. According to the gallery, the earliest pieces use darker colors and mysterious riders, and the later ones turn brighter and full of movement. The show also covers an unusually wide range of materials. Alongside the paintings and works on paper are carousel pieces in ceramic, steel, brass, bronze, silver, glass and Nambé.
The three shows share a scale. Postcards drawn in the middle of the night, a saint the artist returned to for close to thirty years, and a carousel horse made over and over in new materials all come from DeGrazia's working habits. Very little of it was painted with a big public statement in mind. On a mixed-age visit, Painted Ponies is the easy room to start in, and the Midnight Sketches reward the people who like to lean in close.
The chapel kept its scars on purpose
Walk out of the galleries and across the grounds to the Mission in the Sun, which DeGrazia built in 1952 in honor of Padre Kino and dedicated to Our Lady of Guadalupe. On May 29, 2017, a fire blamed on candles burned through the chapel. In the Arizona Daily Star's account of the restoration, foundation executive director Lance Laber said the fire destroyed the roof and about 80% of the murals DeGrazia had painted inside, and smoke darkened much of what was left.
According to the Star, Eric Means of Means Design and Building stabilized the walls and rebuilt the roof following National Register of Historic Places guidelines. The interior walls were plastered over to protect the surviving paint, and nobody tried to recreate DeGrazia's murals. Laber put it plainly to the paper:
"I didn't want to repaint in here. I didn't want to fake the murals."
The foundation instead asked Ginny Moss Rothwell, an artist DeGrazia mentored in the 1970s, to paint the new plaster in background colors suited to his style and palette. A row of simple wood-and-metal benches DeGrazia made himself was scorched in the fire, then restored and put back. The Star reported that the chapel reopened about two and a half years after the fire, once Pima County gave final approval. The gallery's chapel page says the Mission still shows what remains of DeGrazia's frescoes.
The fall exhibits come from the same decision. In the galleries, the foundation hangs the artist's original postcards and envelopes. In the chapel, it lets original paint and new plaster sit side by side without any copies filling the gaps. From a construction point of view this is the harder path. Copying the murals would have looked more finished. Leaving them alone keeps the chapel truthful about its own history, and you can see where the old paint ends and the new plaster begins.
Planning a visit around the holidays
The gallery's visitor page covers the basics:
- Hours: open daily from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., with the permanent galleries starting to close at 3:45 p.m.
- Closed: New Year's Day, Easter, Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day.
- Admission: $10 for adults and $5 for ages 13 to 18. Children under 12 get in free. The gallery offers no admission discounts.
- Grounds: the property is a 10-acre National Historic District.
Because the gallery is closed on Thanksgiving Day, a visit with Thanksgiving guests works best on Wednesday or Friday of that week. Since the galleries start closing at 3:45, it helps to arrive by early afternoon so there's time for both the exhibits and the chapel.
December's two traditions, dates still to come
DeGrazia usually holds two public events in December. As this goes to publication, the gallery's events page still lists the 2025 dates and has not yet announced 2026 dates.
In 2025, Noches de DeGrazia took place on Friday, December 5, from 5 to 7:30 p.m. It was free and offered art, wine, hors d'oeuvres and holiday shopping in the gift shop. La Fiesta de Guadalupe followed on Sunday, December 14, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. It was also free and open to the public, with performances, local food and crafts, hourly piñatas, and parking and shuttle details posted beforehand.
The Fiesta ties straight back to the chapel. The Mission is dedicated to Our Lady of Guadalupe, whose feast day usually falls on December 12. In 2024, the Tucson Sentinel reported that the gallery's Fiesta had been running for more than 40 years. The Star's 2019 report also noted the gallery's plan to hold a Mass and formally rededicate the restored Mission as part of that year's Fiesta. The safest plan is to check the events page in November for 2026 dates before inviting anyone.
DeGrazia's restorers had to decide what to keep, what to protect and what to leave alone, and owners of older Foothills homes face the same choices before a sale: original plaster, beams and built-ins versus replacement. If you're weighing those trade-offs for your own home, Marta Harvey can walk through it with you, and a valuation is a good place to start.
