VANCOUVER, BC — Artists for Conservation (AFC), the world’s leading artist group supporting the environment.
AFC is excited to announce that AFC Signature Member and Texan artist, Doug Hiser will be presented with the 2026 "Priscilla & Michael Baldwin Award for Conservation through Art Education", ("Baldwin Award") at the upcoming Artists for Conservation Festival at VanDusent Botanical Garden in Vancouver, Canada. The award was established in the last year, to be presented to an AFC artist who has made an exceptional contribution to the conservation cause through art education and instruction. This award commemorates years of support of AFC by Priscilla - an AFC Signature Member - and her husband Michael. Both have been longtime patrons and sponsors of AFC and in 2019, Priscilla was a prior recipient of the prestigious Simon Combes Conservation Award - AFC's highest honor since 2004.
Doug's award will be the second Baldwin Award ever to be awarded, following the first, earlier this year, to Arizona artist Rachel Ivanyi.
Doug Hiser has spent a lifetime exploring the world through the eyes of an artist, storyteller, educator adventurer, and passionate conservationist and has dedicated countless hours to educational demonstrations, public murals, workshops, and conservation outreach projects. He has used his artistic talents to engage communities, inspire young artists, and support organizations committed to protecting wildlife and wild places. Doug’s murals demonstrate his belief that art belongs not only in museums or private collections, but in public spaces where it can educate, uplift, and spark imagination.
Doug works with the Houston Audubon Society, the Houston Zoo, and local nature centers and refuges, speaking at events, showing art, and painting murals of the local species and habitats to educate and inspire the public. Recently Hiser has painted Turtle Sculptures for Galveston and Jamaica Beach, the fifty foot 88 bird Audubon Operations Center at Smith Oaks Rookery, the Raptor and Owl flight enclosure murals at the Raptor Center in Houston, the Namibia Cheetah Conservation mural, and the 100 Birds of Texas Mural.
An author of over 25 books, including Amazon bestsellers, ‘The Honey Bee Girl’ and ‘Montana Mist’, Doug is also a professional wildlife artist traveling the globe, from Africa to Australia, in search of the wild beasts that he paints. Teaching High School Arts, after years of research, he has developed an art history program featuring 4 x 4 sketches and the backstories of over 100 artists.
Doug works closely with the Houston Audubon Society and teaches workshops and demos in and around Texas promoting the conservation cause. He once claimed fame on the America Gladiators TV Show and is most proud of his University of Houston Distinguished Alumni Award.
An artist all his life, Doug has always loved animals. In 2009 he made the decision to concentrate his art on - mostly endangered wildlife - to promote awareness and interest in our vanishing natural world.
"My students and I teamed up with the Houston Zoo to create 32 endangered species murals to hang in the Education Center of the Zoo. I headed Zoofari murals for the summer camp of the Houston Zoo. Former member of the Armand Bayou Nature Center and I continue to work with art shows and Earth Day demos for youth at the center. I am a naturalist and wildlife guide, touring international wildlife photographers during Featherfest Galveston's large birding migration festival each year."
Over the years, Doug and his wife Gayln have joined AFC exhibits, gatherings, and field expeditions, sharing not only Doug’s artwork and techniques through live demonstrations, but also their energy, and sense of adventure. Doug embodies the spirit of what AFC stands for: using art as a powerful voice for nature conservation and environmental awareness.
As an author, Doug embraces storytelling as an extension of his art and focus on sharing and educating. His books, like his artwork, reveal someone constantly observing the world with humor, fascination, and empathy. Whether through visual art or written words, Doug invites people to slow down and truly see the extraordinary diversity and beauty around them. In 2026, Doug’s latest book titled ‘Black and White Worlds of Doug Hiser’ was released, not only as an art book, but as a visual journal of curiosity, imagination, travel, and deep engagement with the natural world.
Doug has spent decades using art to move people emotionally about our natural world, to generate empathy, wonder, and ultimately a desire to protect what we value. His work reminds us that conservation is about preserving species and habitats and our human connection to the natural world.
Doug has been a Signature Member of Artists for Conservation since 2018. The award presentation will take place at a special ticketed opening reception of AFC's 2026 Exhibit at VanDusen Botanical Garden on September 24th, where AFC's latest annual exhibit is currently on tour for the ninth time in eighteen years of the exhibit's history.
Learn more about Doug through his AFC website
About Priscilla and Michael Baldwin
Born in South Africa and having lived for an extended time in Texas, Hawaii, Colorado and Arizona, Priscilla has experienced a variety of botanical and natural science environments. She holds a BA from Sweetbriar College. Her varied interests have included scuba diving and competitive trapshooting, gardening, architectural design and botanical and natural sciences art. Always a conservationist, Priscilla's art has given her a channel to promote specific subjects and habitats. Her passion for conservation was magnified in the 1990's, while she was learning botanical illustration and made it a personal mission to inspire others to become conservationists through art.
Priscilla became aware of the powerful connection between art and nature when she displayed an iris from her botanical portfolio. The realism of the painting attracted a wasp, which landed on the paper and attempted the pollination pathway placed by nature. The tiny creature initiated Priscilla's path to the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum.
Thanks to the generosity of the Priscilla and Michael Baldwin Foundation, in 1998, the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum Art Institute (AI) was founded. It represents both the brainchild and the legacy of Priscilla and husband Michael, offering a unique and wide range of art education classes, where conservation concepts underlie each course. Its gallery space regularly hosts major touring art exhibits. The Art Institute has also been developing through acquisition of original artwork, a permanent collection of original art featuring species native to the Sonora Desert. In addition, the Institute includes a large theatre and an active Artist-in-Residence Program.
Today the Art Institute programming regularly conducts classes with live animals from the Museum's collections as models. No other institution is known to follow this practice on a regular basis. The result is powerful. Now, each year, hundreds of students form an emotional bond with these subjects which leads them to become attuned to the natural world and dedicated conservationists.
For Priscilla, pursuit of excellence has been a common goal through each endeavor. A six-time All-American trap shooter and master gardener, Priscilla's art has been the subject of numerous publications, including feature articles in Colorado Homes and Lifestyles, and House and Garden magazines. Priscilla's artwork is in many private collections, and in the corporate collections of Amirob & Associates and BVZ Architects, and in the permanent collections of the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum and the Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation.
About Artists for Conservation
Artists for Conservation (AFC) is the world's leading group of artists supporting the environment. Founded in 1997, the non-profit organization comprises a membership of 500 of the world's most gifted nature artists from 27 countries, across five continents. Dedicated to nurture, promote and leverage its world-class community of artists in support of our natural world, AFC drives its mission through three key programs: Art & Environmental Education; Field Work & Research; and Artist Development. The Artists for Conservation Festival is AFC's annual flagship initiative to showcase, support and further these programs. For more information, visit http://www.artistsforconservation.org.