First time visitors to northern New Mexico, arriving through Albuquerque’s Sunport, get their first taste of the area’s magnificent landscape when they descend the escalator into the Great Hall where they see two dramatic 6-by-11-foot paintings by Wilson Hurley (1924-2008). To some, however, the landscape is vast and monotonous. Hurley’s response was, “Many ask what I see in this country that attracts me so. They insist it is an empty land where nothing ever happens. I tell them I find a poem every day.”
Hurley’s mother had taken him to the National Gallery of Art when he was about 7 or 8 years old. There he saw George Inness’ painting, Peace and Plenty, on loan from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He was so moved by the painting and Inness’ handling of light, he broke into tears. When he got home he took out his drawing materials and “tried to make light come out of a piece of paper,” he later recalled. His visceral response to fine art continued throughout his life. He once said, “A good painting stops the heart and makes the throat ache.”
Thunderstorm Building in the Sandias, 1998, oil on canvas, 48 x 48”Rosalyn Roembke married Hurley in 1969, several years after he had ended his legal and banking career to become a full-time painter. He had graduated from West Point and had had careers as a soldier, aviator, lawyer and banker. After they married, she found that her husband hadn’t kept any records of his work. “I’m a record keeper by nature,” she says, “and it was natural for me to start doing that for him.” She has resurrected records from the time before they married and has compiled a catalogue raisonné which is available online at www.wilson-hurley.com.
A Storm Clearing off the Sandias, oil on canvas, 44 x 88”
She began painting in the 1980s, having already learned a lot as secretary of the National Academy of Western Art, where she recorded her husband’s critiques in shorthand. She had studied art and art history in college but never had the time to pursue painting. Her husband’s success allowed her to leave her job, continue her chronicling of his work and to begin painting herself. He gave her a plein air kit and she accompanied him in the field, notably in the Sandia Mountains near their home in Albuquerque. Today her forte is still lifes—which she is getting back to, having finished her most recent accomplishment, a biography of her husband, The Life and Art of Wilson Hurley: Celebrating the Richness of Reality.
Sundown at the Narrows, 2003, oil on canvas, 36 x 36”
A book signing has been scheduled along with a retrospective exhibition of his paintings at Nedra Matteucci Galleries in Santa Fe. The exhibition, Wilson Hurley: The Richness of Reality, is scheduled for June 27 through July 25.
Pacific Dawn, 2007, oil on canvas, 25 x 40”
Mrs. Hurley says she wrote the book because “there was a story to tell about his life, and he never wanted to take the time to work with a writer.” His father, Major General Patrick J. Hurley, had been Secretary of War from 1929 to 1933, and didn’t look favorably on his son’s interest in art. Nevertheless, on summers spent in New Mexico, his mother arranged for him to study with Theodore Van Soelen, Jozef Bakos and John Young-Hunter. Later, his various careers put him in what he called the “Sunday painter” category until he resolved to dedicate his life to painting.
The Soft Beauty of the World, 2007, oil on canvas, 36 x 60”
Hurley’s earlier experiences, nevertheless, added greatly to his understanding and experience of the landscape. He had studied engineering and topography at West Point and was a pilot in the Air Force. Both experiences broadened his awareness. He remembered that he could look at a topographical map and draw how the feature would look if you were standing in front of it.
City Lights, 1984, oil on canvas,32 x 48”
He was also a model airplane and ship builder. In his studio he built a scale model of Ferdinand Magellan’s 16th-century flagship, La Victoria, the first ship to circumnavigate the globe. He acknowledged, “It’s my idea of the ship after doing a lot of research.” He had hoped to pursue aeronautics before his father encouraged him to attend law school. To accompany La Victoria he planned to construct models of Apollo 11’s command, service and lunar modules, noting that “it’s fascinating to realize they were only 450 years apart.”
Having flown fighter jets in the vastness of the sky he wasn’t intimidated to tackle the enormity of 50,000-foot thunderheads in his paintings or to create huge canvases to contain his vision.
Wilson Hurley (1924-2008). Courtesy Nedra Matteucci Galleries.
Between 1992 and 1996 he created five 16-by-46-foot triptychs for the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, his home state. He engineered an easel to accommodate the giant canvases and designed the interior of the museum’s Sam Noble Special Event Center to display them. Titled Windows to the West, the triptychs include The New Mexico Suite (1992), The California Suite (1993), The Arizona Suite (1994), The Utah Suite (1995), and The Wyoming Suite (1996). Each shows an iconic scene at sunset, the light coming from the west. After the installation was completed, he was inducted into the Oklahoma Hall of Fame and was declared a cultural treasure in Oklahoma in 2002.
That same year his four paintings—Visions of the Land: The Centennial Suite, representing the four quadrants of the Oklahoma landscape and commissioned by the Oklahoma Centennial Commission—were dedicated at the state capitol.
He painted sketches in plein air and, back in the studio, he admitted, “I do move a lot of furniture when I paint” to make the most pleasing composition. The dramatic skies and light conditions of his paintings reflect his belief that “a painting shows a view of the world that’s been passed through another’s mind. Love is not cadmium orange. There’s no color you can mix, there’s no line you can draw, that will put feeling into a painting. But if you go to the canvas with love and joy in your heart, somehow it comes off on the canvas.”
Wilson Hurley:The Richnessof Reality
June 27-July 25, 2020
Nedra Matteucci Galleries, 1075 Paseo De Peralta, Santa Fe, NM 87501
(505) 982-4631, www.matteucci.com
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