Eugene Thurston Art

Eugene Thurston a prominent early Texas artist and muralist who lived in El Paso, Eugene Thurston was also a teacher and lecturer. For his landscapes, much of his subject matter came from the area surrounding his home. He was a prolific painter, continuing into his 80s and worked in oil, watercolor and ink and depicted desert and mountain scenes and also Mexican villages. He was born in Memphis, Tennessee on November 5, 1896 and raised in El Paso, where he graduated from El Paso High School. Then he studied commercial art through a correspondence course from the Federal School of Art in Minneapolis. Between 1940–66, he taught art courses at El Paso Technical Institute and El Paso High School. He also continued his study with Harry B Wagoner and Dey de Ribcowsky at Texas Western College and with Vera Wise. He attended El Paso High School, where he was a cartoonist for the school newspaper. After serving in the Army until the end of WWI, Thurston began taking correspondence art courses and learning about commercial art from local proprietors. He then established a greeting card business. The card business lasted only until the depression. While he continued to teach for 25 years, Thurston also busied himself with establishing El Paso as a visual arts center. He was a charter member of several associations including the El Paso Art Guild, the De Norte Arts and Crafts Guild, The El Paso Chapter of the National Society of Arts and Letters and the El Paso Art Association. Thurston's paintings are displayed in the Congressional office building in Washington, D.C. and New Mexico's governor's office. Thurston was the recipient of the Mentors of Today Award given by the Texas House of Representatives and an award from the National Society of Arts and Letters. He died in El Paso, Texas.