Joseph McGurl graduated from Massachusetts College of Art with a dual major in fine art and education. After a short period in his twenties as a yacht captain sailing from Maine to the Caribbean, he has devoted his life to landscape painting. He is one of America’s most prominent contemporary landscape painters, and his work is exhibited from coast to coast. He is a devoted plein air painter who regularly travels and paints throughout the American West inspired by its natural beauty and history. Joseph has had retrospective shows at the Cape Cod Museum of Art, The Cahoon Museum of American Art, and the Saint Botolph Club of Boston. The Arnot Art Museum’s Representing Representation exhibitions included his work as an example of contemporary landscape painting. In 2024 he was selected as the featured artist for the Coors Western Art Show in Denver. He is in the collections of the New Britain Museum of American Art, The Cape Cod Museum of Art, The Cahoon Museum of American Art, the Mellon Collection, The Art Renewal Center, the Tweed Museum of Art, the Forbes Collection, and the Westmoreland Museum of Art. He has been designated a Living Master by the Art Renewal Center, elected to the Guild of Boston Artists, was a Copley Master with the Copley Society of Boston, was a fellow with the American Society of Marine Artists and is a signature member of the Plein Air Painters of America. Among his many awards are from the Art Renewal Center International Salon: two First Place in Landscape awards, the Plein Air Magazine award, the American Fine Art Magazine Award of Excellence, the Rehs Award, Best marine themed work, and a Purchase Award; Best of Show and Patron’s Choice at the Laguna Plein Air Painting Invitational; Three Patron’s Choice Awards and the Western Art Collector Magazine Award at the Coors Western Art Exhibitions; two Guild of Boston Artists First Place Gold Medallions; Best Group of Paintings at the Salmagundi Club American Masters Show; First Place at the Salmagundi Club’s Members’ Show; the Boldbrush Award, and the Copley Society’s John Singleton Copley Award given for Artistic Achievement.