Wilson Hurley
SFW&C Fiesta Featured Artist 2008
Hurley (1924-2008) was a graduate of West Point, an engineer, a pilot, and later a successful attorney in Albuquerque. He moved with his family to Santa Fe as a boy, and with his mother’s encouragement, he began to develop his talent as a painter under the tutelage of local artist Theodore Van Soelen.
Although art was an important and constant part of his life, he did not turn to painting as a way of making a living until he was 40 years old. Painting in the grand tradition of Thomas Moran and Albert Bierstadt, but with a highly modern and scientific perspective, Hurley’s canvases, often in large scale, bring the viewer up close to the beauty of the western landscape in great detail.
Presented with a lifetime achievement by the Albuquerque Museum of Art, Hurley’s greatest artistic achievement was the creation of five mammoth murals at the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum.