Hugh Beykirch was born in Duesseldorf, Germany, and came to the United States in 1954. He pursued a career in business until 1965 when he returned to academic studies. He received his Ph.D. in Audiology at Wayne State University Medical School, Detroit, in 1974. Essentially self-taught as an artist, he was always interested in the Humanities and Fine Arts. His interest in actively painting was reawakened with a visit to the Saxon Mountain Gallery in Georgetown, Colorado. He studied with the founder of the gallery, Bill Alexander, in 1981 and work-shopped with well-known Colorado Artists, Linda Roberts and Karen Vance. Beykirch joined the Thursday Painters at the Hearst Center for the Arts in Cedar Falls, Iowa, in 1994. He pursued further studies under Harriett Hasty in Parkersburg, Iowa, and Terrence Leach in Durango Colorado. In Winter Park, Colorado, Beykirch painted with the Grand County Artists, a group pursuing various media. In the Spring of 2004, the artist was invited to become a member of the Madera Artists and the Santa Rita Art League in Green Valley, Arizona, and then became an active participant in the abstract BRIGGade, Artists 13, and the Tubac Center of the Arts in 2005. Recently, Beykirch studied with David Simons, Hans Ressdorf, Esther Rogoway, Martha Mans, Raleigh Kinney, Pat Lambrecht-Hould, Joan Cawthorn, and Terry Leach. Until the announcement of the Eva Briggs Abstract Competition in 2004, the artist was considered a representational, realistic, and sometimes impressionistic painter of landscapes,

birds, and flowers, primarily utilizing transparent watercolors. Not being bound by realism, Beykirch began to paint in terms of color, values, shapes, and line. The ultimate rewards came with the enthusiastic response to the exhibition and sale of his "New-Day Art"at the Winter Park Alpine ArtAffair in 2004. Three of Beykirch's abstract paintings, "Holy Primary", "Fractured Perfection", and "On Golden Pointe" were among the final twenty-four presented as the Best of the Briggs Abstract Art Competition, 2005, at the Rogoway Gallery, Tubac, Arizona. In 2006, his painting "Iconic Dominance" was selected for the Second Annual Briggs Exhibit at the Rogoway Gallery as were both of his entries, “Odyssey” and “Journeys”, at the Briggs Competition of 2007. In 2008, "Celestial Visitation" was among the final 24 exhibited at the Tubac venue. Both paintings submitted in 2009, "Shatterer of Worlds" and "After the Fall", were once again among the final 24. The artist has successfully participated in the Open-Studio Tours of the Tubac Center of the Arts (TCA) since 2009 and was invited to present in the University of Arizona Museum of Art's (UAMA) Fresh Paint project celebrating Southern Arizona's artistic talent in 2011. Beykirch's work is currently exhibited at the Grand Lake Gallery in Grand Lake, Colorado, and at Framewerx in Winter Park, Colorado.