RALPH VICTOR MURRAY (1897 – 1991)

Ralph V. Murray was born in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada on June 27, 1897. When his father died, Murray left his studies at Rothesay Academy at age 15 to help support his mother and sisters. He joined the Canadian Expeditionary Forces at age 18 and served in England during World War I. After surviving diphtheria near the war’s end, he left the military and worked various jobs in Canada and the United States until he reached San Francisco. There he was hired by the State Highway Division and became a surveyor for the Big Sur stretch of Highway One between Santa Maria and Carmel from 1923 to 1924.

Upon retirement in 1940, he settled on the Monterey Peninsula and took up painting landscapes and seascapes in oil. The following year he was awarded Second Place in the Santa Cruz County Fair. Though mostly self-taught, he studied briefly with renowned Carmel Art Association Artist Members Burton Boundey and Abel “Buck” Warshawsky. He juried into the CAA in 1940 and exhibited there until 1960. Among his closest friends and peers in the art community were Frank Meyers, Myron Oliver, Armin Hansen, Arthur Hill Gilbert, and Leslie Emery. He gave private lessons and continued to paint and sell his work widely until shortly before his death on February 21, 1991.

(Portrait credit: Copyright Susan Murray Lingenfelter)