William Oliphant Hutchison

Sir William Oliphant Hutchison LLD PRSA (2 July 1889 in Kirkcaldy – 5 February 1970 in Kensington, London) was a Scottish portrait and landscape painter. He was an Honorary Member of the Royal Academy, President of the Royal Scottish Academy and a member of the Royal Society of Arts.

He was a scholar at Kirkcaldy High School in Kirkcaldy, and subsequently at Rugby School. He attended the Edinburgh College of Art between 1909 and 1912. On leaving he started the Edinburgh Group, holding exhibitions for three consecutive years, with Eric Robertson, Alick Riddell Sturrock, John Guthrie Spence Smith,Dorothy Johnstone, Mary Newbery, and David Macbeth Sutherland who later became Principal at Gray's School of Art in Aberdeen. Hutchison also worked and studied in Paris for a while, mainly painting portraits though also producing landscape and figure paintings.

Hutchison enlisted during the First World War serving with the Royal Garrison Artillery and being stationed in Malta, later being badly wounded in France. After demobilization in 1918, he and his wife occupied a studio flat in Edinburgh until 1921, before moving to London. Here he successfully worked as a portrait painter, exhibiting at the Royal Academy, becoming a member of the Savage Club, and enjoying a large circle of friends, mainly from the art world.

Hutchison was Director of the Glasgow School of Art from 1933 to 1943, from all accounts being an excellent director. Though a great traditionalist he encouraged those who tended to the avant-garde. The school maintained an interest in those staff and students serving during World War II, sending them gifts and cards.

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