Above & Beyond the Landscape: The New Mexico Air National Guard and other Military Art of Wilson Hurley

Laureta Huit
12 hours ago
8 min read

Wilson Hurley 1958

F-80 Towing Aerial Gunnery Target

Oil on Panel

Collection of The New Mexico Air National Guard

L2026.002.0002

We extend our sincere thanks to Rosalyn Roembke Hurley for her generous contributions and steadfast support in helping the New Mexico Military Museum realize this exhibition.

We are also deeply grateful to Lieutenant Colonel Jordy Wommack, retired, Air Force and Air Guard, for his dedication, guidance, and invaluable assistance throughout the process.

Our appreciation further extends to the New Mexico National Guard, the New Mexico Air National Guard, and its Guardsmen, whose far reaching support and cooperation were essential in bringing this exhibition to life.

We also wish to thank the New Mexico Military Museum Foundation for its continued support, vision, and investment, which made this exhibition possible.

Rosalyn Roembke Hurley was born in Indianapolis and received her bachelor’s degree from the University of Michigan. For a decade she worked in research and

administrative capacities at the University of New Mexico, before marrying Wilson in 1969. From the early 1970s onward, Rosalyn and Wilson worked as a team, with Rosalyn assisting in all aspects of his career. A professional artist herself, she credits her painting education to lessons learned from her husband of nearly forty years.

Wilson would be pleased and honored that his military inspired art is gaining an audience. Throughout his life, the two most important aspects of his life were his painting and his service to his community, state and nation. His years as a pilot – first in the Army Air Corps, then the Air Force, and finally the Air National Guard – gave him a unique appreciation for the “bird’s eye view.” He saw things as only a pilot can see them, and this perspective gave his paintings a vibrant sense of movement and beauty.

Many of Wilson’s early works were inspired by his military service in Post-World War II recovery operations throughout the islands of Southeast Asia, where he was tasked with locating the remains of downed aircrew and their aircraft. Once he left active duty and became a member of the New Mexico Air National Guard, he began painting more regularly, many times capturing the life of a fighter pilot. To Wilson, this naturally included the beauty of landscapes and clouds, as he and his fellow pilots traversed the serenity of New Mexico skies on training missions.

Many later pieces reflected dramatic memories of his combat tour in Viet Nam, where he flew missions over enemy firebases and troops in contact. The images seared into his brain were converted into art. There was no expectation that they would ever be displayed or sold… he just needed to paint them for his own peace of mind. Those thoughts and images stayed with him his entire life. These paintings were in large part gifted to the United States Air Force Museum, but many others were painted for fellow pilots who also flew in the war.

He was proud of the paintings he produced as part of his association with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and he would be pleased to have them shown along with the other military art through the years. They reflect the sanctity of Space, while also capturing Mankind’s evolutionary progress as part of all that surrounds us. This “oneness” was part of Wilson’s view of existence, and he did his best to portray this through oil on canvas.

He treasured the friendships and camaraderie that the Air National Guard provided, and to Wilson being an artist was not incongruous with a military career. The commitment to our American way of life was paramount. Seeing this exhibition come to life means that Wilson’s work will be appreciated in the context of his service to the nation.

Rosalyn Roembke Hurley

Wilson Hurley 1968

Flight of Four Over the Rio Grande

Oil on Canvas

Collection of The Wilson Hurley Estate

L2026.001.0004

This exhibition honors the remarkable legacy of Wilson Hurley by bringing together his military service and his enduring contribution to American landscape painting. Through rarely seen works, the exhibition explores Hurley’s deep connection to New Mexico’s skies, land, and the aircraft of the New Mexico Air National Guard, subjects that shaped both his artistic vision and his service.

Designed to engage longtime supporters of military history as well as new audiences drawn to the arts, this exhibition bridges disciplines, connecting art, aviation, and military history, and reflects the New Mexico Military Museum’s mission to tell complex stories of service through unexpected and meaningful perspectives.

A defining feature of this exhibition is the inclusion of works by Wilson Hurley that have never been displayed publicly. Visitors familiar with Hurley’s work will encounter an unknown chapter of his career, while new audiences will experience his masterful use of light and atmosphere for the first time. Together, these paintings offer an unprecedented opportunity to explore Hurley’s artistic legacy alongside the military history of New Mexico, revealing a story as expansive as the skies he so vividly captured.

Wilson Hurley 1971

Wilson Hurley (Self Portrait)

Oil on Canvas

Collection of The Wilson Hurley Estate

L2026.001.0001

Wilson Hurley (1924–2008) one of America’s most accomplished landscape painters, renowned for his monumental depictions of the New Mexico sky. Working primarily in oil, Hurley developed a distinctive style defined by expansive scale, meticulous realism, and an exceptional sensitivity to light and atmosphere. His work captures the vastness of the American West while reflecting a lifelong commitment to discipline, craftsmanship, and careful observation.

Hurley’s distinguished career began with his appointment to the United States Military Academy at West Point, from which he graduated in June 1945. He served as a pilot in the U.S. Army Air Corps and later the U.S. Air Force before resigning his commission in 1949. He subsequently earned his Juris Doctor degree from George Washington University Law School in 1951. By 1952, Hurley had made New Mexico his home, where he practiced law while continuing to develop his artistic talents and becoming a member of the New Mexico Air National Guard.

Over the following decades, Hurley became widely recognized for his Western art, with paintings featured in prominent collections and museums across the United States. He was particularly drawn to New Mexico’s high desert and vast skies, returning repeatedly to these subjects as a central focus of his work. Through masterful control of scale, light, and atmosphere, Hurley transformed familiar landscapes into immersive visual experiences.

His many achievements include numerous gold and silver medals, the prestigious Prix de West Award presented by the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in 1984, election as a Fellow of the American Society of Aviation Artists, induction into the Oklahoma Hall of Fame (1966) and the Tulsa Hall of Fame (2001), and recognition as the Albuquerque Museum Foundation’s second Notable New Mexican in May 2002. Hurley’s legacy endures through works that continue to shape how the landscape and skies of New Mexico are seen and understood.

Military Biography

In 1942, after completing his education at the Los Alamos Ranch School in New Mexico, Wilson Hurley sought his father’s approval to enlist in the Army Air Corps. Facing the choices of enlistment, continued schooling, or the draft, his father instead encouraged him to apply to the United States Military Academy at West Point, where he would have the opportunity to qualify for flight training. Hurley was admitted in the summer of 1942, qualified for aviation training, and earned his pilot’s wings just two weeks before graduating as a Second Lieutenant in June 1945.

Hurley’s initial tour of duty with the U.S. Army Air Corps lasted 30 months in the Philippines, where he was assigned to Air–Sea Rescue and Graves Registration. In this role, he flew extensively throughout the South Pacific—including Australia, Borneo, the Philippines, and surrounding islands—primarily piloting a Catalina flying boat. His duties often required trekking into crash sites to recover the remains of fallen airmen. These long flights and demanding missions proved formative, deepening his lifelong appreciation for the natural world and marking a pivotal influence on his development as a painter.

After completing his initial service commitment, Hurley resigned his commission at the urging of his father and entered George Washington University Law School, earning his Juris Doctor degree in 1951. He returned to New Mexico in 1952 to practice law, but his dedication to aviation and sense of obligation to military service endured. He joined the New Mexico Air National Guard as a part-time pilot, continuing to fly while pursuing his civilian career. Hurley remained with the Guard until retiring as a Lieutenant Colonel in 1973.

From 1968 to 1969, Hurley was recalled to active duty during the Vietnam War, serving as a Forward Air Controller and Air Liaison Officer attached to the ROC Capital Division. Over the course of his military career, he qualified to fly more than ten different types of aircraft. His service, spanning World War II through Vietnam, remained a defining element of his life and profoundly informed both his artistic vision and his enduring connection to the skies he so vividly portrayed.

In November 2025, Wilson Hurley was inducted into the New Mexico National Guard Hall of Honor, recognizing his distinguished military career, his service as a Guard aviator, and the enduring legacy he forged both in uniform and through his art. His induction stands as a testament to his remarkable contributions and to the enduring spirit of service that defines the Hall’s honorees.

Curatorial Reflection

Wilson Hurley’s fascination with flight and the sky is inseparable from his artistic vision. Across his monumental aviation works, he blends technical precision, disciplined observation, and an acute sensitivity to light and air painting the atmosphere as he understood it through lived experience as an aviator. From sweeping Western landscapes to meticulously rendered Air National Guard aircraft, Hurley unites aviation with the natural world, offering viewers a perspective shaped by both mastery and motion.

In these aviation paintings, Hurley brings his command of scale and composition into the sky, positioning the viewer alongside him in the cockpit. The exhilaration of flight is conveyed not only through aircraft and altitude, but through the orchestration of space, light, and movement. His works reveal views rarely experienced on the ground—moments shaped by training, vigilance, and the discipline required to fly.

The countless hours Hurley logged in the cockpit throughout his military career left lasting impressions that he later distilled onto canvas. He captures the texture and temperature of the sky at altitude, rendering air as something felt as much as seen. Lenticular clouds stack along the horizon like geological formations, echoing the Western landscapes for which he is best known. From within darker reaches of cumulus clouds, light emerges suggesting direction, resolution, and the quiet assurance of a completed mission.

Within these vast compositions, aircraft often appear as small, deliberate forms reduced to a few precise brushstrokes against the immensity of the sky. Though diminutive on the canvas, their presence remains powerful; in reality, one would be dwarfed standing beside them. This play of scale underscores both the immensity of the atmosphere and the remarkable human ingenuity required to navigate it, drawing the viewer into a distinctly pilot eye view of flight.

The unique intimacy of the gallery space heightens this experience. The monumental scale of Hurley’s paintings dominates the room, allowing viewers to engage closely with scenes that depict extraordinary distance and altitude. The result is an encounter that feels immersive without being overwhelming, reinforcing the commanding presence of both the sky and the works themselves.

In an adjacent gallery, two paintings commissioned by NASA extend the exhibition beyond Earth’s atmosphere. These works depict the moon’s surface and the precise geometry of satellites in orbit, combining scientific accuracy with Hurley’s disciplined approach to light, scale, and form. Here, the exhibition moves from airspace into orbit, expanding its scope while maintaining continuity with Hurley’s vision.

Together, the aviation and NASA works trace a journey from the skies above New Mexico to the reaches of space. Across this spectrum, Hurley translates the discipline, precision, and wonder of flight into paint creating a body of work that reflects not only what it means to see the world from above, but what it means to understand it through experience, control, and awe.