Wilson Hurley, Brodkin Contemporary Western Artists Project

Wilson Hurley was interviewed in his Albuquerque, New Mexico studio by Dickinson Research Center Director Chuck Rand and videotaped by Wade Stevens on April 17, 2003. Born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the son of Ruth Wilson Hurley and Patrick J. Hurley, the Secretary of War under President Hoover, Wilson graduated from the United State Military Academy at West Point in 1945. After careers as a pilot, banker, and lawyer, Hurley devoted himself to painting beginning in 1964. During the 1990s, he painted the five triptychs of his favorite western landscapes, called Windows to the West, which adorn this museums special events center. Wilson Hurley died on August 29, 2008. He was 84.