[3] Hurtubise was born on February 28, 1939, in Montreal, and studied painting at the École des beaux-arts de Montréal.
[2][3] He spent much of the 1960s living in New York City and becoming part of the abstract expressionist scene there.
[1][2] In the early 1970s his compositions were based on square forms, but by the late 1970s they shifted to linear patterns that resembled abstract landscapes.
[1] His later work featured "deep-black pools, rivers and geometric forms that often mask upside-down maps and text.
"[2] His many awards included the grand prize for painting at the 1965 Concours Artistique du Québec, the Victor Martyn Lynch-Staunton Award of the Canada Council for the Arts in 1992,[4] and the Prix Paul-Émile-Borduas from the Québec government in 2000.