Architect, painter, and printmaker John McHugh was born in Indiana in 1918. Orphaned at the age of seven, he was sent to live with his aunts in Springfield, Ohio. He attended Notre Dame University's School of Architecture in Indiana, graduating cum laude in 1941. He briefly took an apprecticeship back in Ohio before serving as a planner in the U.S. Airforce during World War II. His wartime activities took him to Europe where he remained after his tour of duty, and he traveled and studied for several months before returning to the U.S. to teach at his alma mater. 

During a 1946 cross-country road trip, his car broke down near Santa Fe, New Mexico. Hoping to earn enough to fix his car and hit the road once more, McHugh joined the architectural firm of John Gaw Meem in what he thought would be a temporary stint. Soon, however, he had settled into the artist's conclave that was mid-century Santa Fe and began working on paintings and serigraphs. He met future wife, Gillian Wethey, a British-born concert pianist, in 1953 and they married a year later. In 1955 he opened his own firm with architect Van Dorn Hooker. Among their many commissions was original Santa Fe Opera House (and its subsequent redesign after a fire in 1967). They also designed the Maxwell Museum and Anthropology building at the University of New Mexico; churches Our Lady of Guadalupe (Santa Fe), St. James Episcospal (Taos), and Our Lady of the Assumption (Albuquerque). They restored the St. Francis Cathedral and the mission church at San Ildefonso Pueblo and St. Augustine Church, Isleta Pueblo. 

McHugh continued to work on his art whenever he had a spare moment. He helped found the New Mexico Arts Commission and served as the Chair of the New Mexico Chapter for the American Institute of Architects. He was a good friend of Gustave Baumann and other leading artists and designers of Santa Fe, with whom he would occasionally exhibit. In 1985 he suffered a severe stroke and was unable to work as much as he had, but after a few years of dedicated practice, he began to paint once more. In 1992 he was given a paiinting retrospective at St. John's College in Santa Fe and was awarded the Governor's Award for Major Contributor to the Arts. He would continue to pursue visual art until his death in 1995.