William Oliphant Hutchinson Art

William Oliphant Hutchison was born at Kirkcaldy, Fife, Scotland, on July 2, 1889. He was the fifth child in the family of four sons and two daughters. His parents were Henry William Hutchison of Kinloch, a Kirkcaldy businessman and his wife, Sarah Hannah née Key. He was educated at Kirkcaldy High School, Cargilfield School and later at Rugby School. As a boy, he showed considerable promise as an artist and wanted to become a painter but his family was set on him entering the business. In 1911, he spent a period in Paris, primarily to perfect his French, where he also took this opportunity to study at the Académie Delécluse, striking up a lifelong friendship with Scottish artist, Sir James Gunn. On his return to Scotland, he entered the family timber business but, with his father's permission, entered Edinburgh College of Art, having a portrait of his younger sister Nancy exhibited at the Royal Scottish Academy in 1911. While studying in Edinburgh, he came under the influence of watercolorist Edward Arthur Walton and became friends with the Walton family and in 1918, married their youngest daughter Margery. They had two sons, Henry Peter and Robert Edward and a daughter Helen Elizabeth Anne. Hutchison served in the Great War and was severely wounded in France and on demobilization took a studio flat in York Place, Edinburgh, where they remained until 1921. They then moved to Mulberry Walk, Chelsea and after two years to Ladbroke Road, Holland Park. Hutchison practiced as a portrait painter with some measure of success, exhibiting regularly at the Royal Academy. In 1929, Hutchison purchased the old vicarage at Blyth Hill, Suffolk and spent his time either in London or at Suffolk, where he was living until 1939 with his wife and two of his children. In 1933, Hutchison had been elected as the director of The Glasgow School of Art and remained as a director until 1943. He moved into the upper part of a house in Eglinton Crescent, Edinburgh during this time and converted the principal floor into a studio and living-room. In 1937, he was elected as an Associate of the Royal Scottish Academy and an academician in 1943, serving on the council, In 1950, he succeeded Sir Frank Mears as president and was knighted in 1953. Around 1960 he returned to London, where he had maintained a studio at Cheniston Gardens Studios, Kensington shortly after the Second World War. He was elected as a member of the Royal Society of Portrait Painters in 1948 and was its president in 1965. He painted many distinguished people, including the Queen, Prince Philip and the Queen Mother. Hutchison’s full-length portrait of the Queen in Thistle robes, painted for the Edinburgh Merchant Company in 1956, is probably one of his finest works. His other portraits included Ramsay MacDonald in House of Commons, Dorothy L. Sayers in National Portrait Gallery, London and Sir Sydney A. Smith, for which he received a gold medal in the Paris Salon of 1961. Kirkcaldy Art Gallery contains his paintings, both portraits and landscapes, given by the artist including, a portrait of the artist's mother. Hutchison continued working up until his death at his home at Oakwood Court, Kensington, on February 5, 1970.