Hubert Buel was born in Sacramento, California on March 11, 1915.

In the early 1930s, he studied watercolor painting with Alexandra Bradshaw at Fresno State College then continued his art education at the University of California, Los Angeles. Buel worked briefly at the Walt Disney Studios and taught at Long Beach City College until 1940.

During World War II, Hubert Buel served as a United States Naval Officer in the South Pacific with the rank of Lieutenant. He took painting supplies with him and produced a number of watercolors depicting island life and military involvement. After the war, he worked at Twentieth Century-Fox Studios as a set designer and then took a permanent job as art director at the San Francisco Chronicle newspaper. He was an artist member of the Bohemian Club in San Francisco.

Buel was a prolific watercolorist for fifty years. He often selected Bay Area subject matter near his home in San Francisco, but also painted in Hawaii, Mexico and Europe. The majority of his works were produced on location and were painted with transparent watercolors.He was a founding member of the West Coast Watercolor Society and became president of that organization in 1974. He also illustrated a number of children’s books, including The Shy Stegosaurus of Cricket Creek by Evelyn Sibley Lampman in 1955.

Hubert Buel died in San Francisco on July 16, 1984

Hubert Buel biography drawn partially from “California Watercolors 1850-1970” By Gordon T. McClelland and Jay T. Last.