Going above and beyond: New Mexico Military Museum showcases the works of artist Wilson Hurley

“Above & Beyond the Landscape: The Air National Guard and Other Military Art of Wilson Hurley,” opening at the New Mexico Military Museum on Thursday, Feb. 12, showcases a lifetime of dedication and visualization.

Wilson Hurley was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and spent his early years in Virginia and New Mexico. He had a long military career, attending West Point for pilot training and serving as an aircraft pilot during the Vietnam War era. He served in the New Mexico Air National Guard for 15 years.

He died in 2008.

Rosalyn Hurley, Wilson Hurley’s wife, said his time in the military as a pilot influenced many of his works.

“The view of the world that he had from flying was unique, and that involved his whole life,” Rosalyn Hurley said.

“He was always visual and that’s not foreign to the military,” Hurley said. “You make maps, you make exhibits, and you have to look at yourself in various places visually, and so that’s kind of how it was natural for him.”

Hurley said her husband had been interested in art since childhood. 

His portfolio showcases his time, experience and dedication to the military, but it also features landscapes and images of space.

In “Flight of Four Over Rio Grande,” painted in 1968, he depicts four aircraft as they soar over the winding river. 

Alongside select paintings, the exhibit will feature never-before-seen sketches and field studies that show Wilson’s artistic process.

“You don’t just start with an empty canvas. You have to do drawings, and you have to have a concept of what the work is going to be resulting in,” Hurley said, “and so it’s natural for you to do any number of sketches, and we thought that it was appropriate to exhibit some of that at this exhibit.”

Hurley said the sketches and field studies were germane to Wilson’s artistic process, and it felt natural to include them.

“They were just things that he was interested in, that he saw when he was flying,” Hurley said.

“They were things that he did, that he didn’t intend for them even to be exhibited or of interest to anybody except the people who were there,” Hurley said. “So he very often would just paint on a piece of board that didn’t have any real integrity.”

Rosalyn Hurley is a still life artist and said the couple often helped each other.

“He thought that it was nice to have somebody who could be objective about what he did,” Hurley said.

She said if she did not understand a representation, she would say so, and he would adjust it so it was more apparent, and he would do the same for her.

Hurley said that every piece in “Above & Beyond the Landscape” is unique and together they showcase a lifetime of memories.

“You never stop processing visual things, and they return to you, and they’re a part of your life,” Hurley said. “They’re a part of your being.”

Wilson Hurley showed in exhibits across the country, and his work can be found in the collections of the Albuquerque Museum, New Mexico Museum of Art, the Autry Museum of the American West in Los Angeles, Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art in Indianapolis and more. 

Elizabeth Secor is an arts fellow from the New Mexico Local News Fellowship program. You can reach her at esecor@abqjournal.com.