Born in London, England on March 26, 1894, Robert Hurley trained as an apprentice printer-compositor before serving in the Suffolk Regiment (1917-1920). In 1923, Hurley immigrated to Canada and moved to Saskatoon in 1930. Finding himself unemployed at the age of forty during the Depression, Hurley began to paint with berry juices and a toothbrush. Largely self-taught with only a few classes from Ernest Lindner, he quickly became well known in Saskatchewan and other parts of Canada for his treatment of the prairie landscape. His first showing was at a 1935 exhibition with the Manitoba Society of Artists in Winnipeg. In Saskatoon, he worked as a plant technician with the Dominion Plant Pathology Laboratory on the University of Saskatchewan campus alongside Dr. Ralph C. Russell. Hurley and Russell made many field excursions across the prairies. Hurley remained in Saskatchewan until 1963 when he retired to Victoria, British Columbia. He lived in Victoria until his death in 1980.