B. 1958, Needham, MA; currently resides in Cataumet, MA.

Joseph McGurl is largely considered one of the most prominent figures in contemporary landscape painting. From an early age, he was immersed in art, greatly due to the tutelage of his father James McGurl, a muralist, and Ralph Rosenthal, a teacher at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. In 1980, McGurl earned a dual BFA in Painting and Education from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design and spent summers studying art in England and Italy. Soon thereafter, he acquired more rigorous training, specifically in the fundamentals of drawing, through Robert John Cormier, a leader of the Boston School and a scholar of French academic practice.

McGurl’s life-long love of the natural world led to a preoccupation with landscape and seascape painting. Inspired by the painters of the Hudson River School as well as the Boston School, the artist focuses on accumulating experiential data (i.e. direct observation, field studies, sketches and notes), researching historical evidence, climatology and related sciences, and exploring the full spectrum of light in order to convey accuracy onto his studio paintings.

Photography does not play a role in recreating scenes for McGurl’s final works; however, this intentional exclusion gives way to infinite pictorial manifestations by mining his rich cache of studies, memories, and imagination. Moreover, it demonstrates his individual interpretation of the world around him, creating a much more compelling vision than a systematic photo-realist painting ever could.

Joseph McGurl has gallery representation in New York, San Francisco and Cape Cod, and he has participated in numerous museum exhibitions in the Northeastern United States. He is also a member of PAPA, ASMA and a Copley Master. His work is continually featured in important art texts and periodicals, and he is a much sought-after lecturer on representational landscape painting.