Mary E. Hutchinson

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Mary E. Hutchinson (born 1906 in Melrose, Massachusetts ; † July 10, 1970 ) was an American artist and art teacher who lived and worked in New York City during the Great Depression and World War II .

life and work

Hutchinson was the daughter of the teacher couple Minnie Belle and Merrill Hutchinson and grew up in Atlanta . She attended Washington Seminary, where her mother taught, and then studied at Agnes Scott College in Decatur, Georgia . In 1925 she had her first exhibition with her private art teacher Marion Otis in the windows of the Henry Grady Hotel . The Atlanta newspapers reported on it as part of a promotion to open a city ​​art museum that opened as the High Museum of Art the following year . In 1926 she received a scholarship to the National Academy of Design in New York. Here she won three prizes, one each for sculpture, drawing and etching. In the early 1930s, she moved to New York City, worked on various arts programs, and taught for the New York Federal Art Project . Throughout the New Deal she exhibited independently in the Midtown Galleries and as a member of various artist organizations, including the National Association of Women Artists , the New York Society of Women Artists, the Society of Independent Artists, and the American Artists Congress . In 1934 she had her first solo exhibition in New York in the Midtown Galleries. The Atlanta High Museum purchased two of her paintings and she joined the National Association of Women Painters and Sculptors. Exhibitions of her work have been shown in numerous galleries and museums. After her return to Atlanta in 1945, she worked on the faculty of the High Museum School of Art and its successor at the Atlanta Art Institute until the late 1940s . Then she taught as an art teacher at several Catholic high schools until her death in 1970. From 1959 to 1967 she was the first female art teacher at St. Pius X Catholic High School .

She produced more than 250 works, including oil paintings, drawings, and etchings. Her artwork featured portraits, particularly of women and African Americans. Her last solo show, held at the West Hunter Branch Library in the spring of 1950, included a painting entitled: The Student (ca.1937). She gave the painting to a librarian at the end of the exhibition, and it is now part of the Auburn Avenue Research Library's collection on African American culture and history. Hutchinson never married and from 1931 onwards shared her life with a number of partners.

Exhibitions (selection)

  • 1925: Henry Grady Hotel, Atlanta
  • 1927: High Museum, Atlanta, "12th Annual Exhibition - The Atlanta Art Association"
  • 1930: Biltmore Hotel, Atlanta
  • 1932: Salons of America; Washington Square Sidewalk Show; Painters and Sculptors Gallery; High Museum, Atlanta; The Jumble Shops; GRD Studio
  • 1933: ACA Gallery, New York, “New York Scenes in oils, water colors, lithography”
  • 1934: Theodore A. Kohn & Son, Jewelers; Midtown Gallery; National Academy of Design; High Museum, Atlanta; Washington Square Sidewalk Show; ACA Gallery;
  • 1935: Argent Galleries; National Association of Women Artists; New York Society of Women Artists
  • 1936: National Association of Women Artists; Midtown Galleries (Oct.)
  • 1937: National Association of Women Artists; Society of Independent Artists; Chicago Art Institute; Midtown Galleries
  • 1938: National Association of Women Artists; Society of Independent Artists
  • 1938-1939: Barbizon Hotel for Women
  • 1939: New York Society of Women Artists; Society of Independent Artists; American Artists Congress
  • 1940: New York Society of Women Artists; American Artists' Congress
  • 1941: High Museum (Black and White Show)
  • 1943: National Association of Women Artists; Society of Independent Artists
  • 1944: New York Society of Women Artists; Society of Independent Artists
  • 1945: New York Society of Women Artists
  • 1946: New York Society of Women Artists
  • 1947: New York Society of Women Artists
  • 1949: Tampa Art Institute; New York Society of Women Artists; National Association of Women Artists
  • 1950: National Association of Women Artists; Castle Gallery, Atlanta; West Hunter Library, Atlanta
  • 1952: New York Society of Women Artists
  • 1953: Argent Galleries; National Association of Women Artists

literature

  • Jae Turner: Mary E. Hutchinson, Intelligibility, and the Historical Limits of Agency, Feminist Studies, Inc., Vol. 38, no. 2, 2012.
  • Jae Turner: A Death Without Cause: Mary E. Hutchinson's Un-archived Life in Certified Death, in Un-archived Histories, ed.Gyanendra Pandey, London: Routledge, 2014.
  • Jae Turner: Mary E. Hutchinson: The Absence of an Oeuvre, Dissertation, Emory University, 2012.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Hutchinson, Mary E.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hutchinson, Mary Elizabeth
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American artist and art teacher
DATE OF BIRTH 1906
PLACE OF BIRTH Melrose, Massachusetts
DATE OF DEATH July 10, 1970