Sir William Oliphant Hutchison RSA 1889 -1970

Sir William Oliphant Hutchison belonged to a distinguished Fife family and was born at Kirkcaldy in 1889. His early education was at Kirkcaldy and Cargilfield, whence he proceeded to Rugby.

He then studied in Paris for a year, for the purpose of acquiring fluency in French, to equip him for a business career, but he also gained considerable knowledge of the French Capital and studied fencing at a salle d'armes and painting at L'Atelier Delecluse. When the year ended, he returned, and in accordance with parental wishes, entered into business, joining the office of a Middlesbrough Timber Merchant.

A year later, he rebelled against commercial life and obtained from his parents permission to enter the Edinburgh College of Art. He came under the influence of E, A, Walton, whose youngest daughter, Margery, he was to marry in 1918.

During the 1914-18 War, he served with the Royal Garrison Artillery. He was demobilised in 1919 and for a brief period he and his wife lived in a studio - house in York Place, Edinburgh. The following  year found them in Chelsea and their artist friends there included James Gunn and James Pryde. One of his finest portraits is his painting of Gunn.

For a time he painted in Antibes, but he had already decided to make
portrait painting his main line. He was also a landscape and still-life artist and some of these works were freer in feeling than his portraiture. In 1933, he returned to Scotland to take up the post of Director of the Glasgow School of Art, retiring after a period of ten years in order to spend more time on painting.

Sir William was elected an Associate of the Royal Scottish Academy in 1937, a full Academician in 1948, and succeeded Sir Frank Mears as President in 1950. He was knighted in 1953, and resigned the Presidency in 1959, subsequently making London his permanent residence. He was elected a member of the Royal Society of Portrait Painters and, when the Board of Trustees of the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland wasset up in 1954, he was elected a member.

He served for a time on the Scottish Committee of the Arts Council of Great Britain. In 1956, Edinburgh University bestowed on him an Honorary Degree of Doctor of Laws, Sir William wasby this time in demand as a public speaker.

Among his important works are the portraits of the Earl of Airlie, Clifton Brown (former Speaker of the House of Commons,) Sir Sydney Smith (a portrait which was awarded a Gold Medalat the Paris Salon in 1961), and Lord Layton; and in 1956 he painted, on behalf of the Edinburgh Merchant Company, portrait of their Patron, Queen Elizabeth. 

This large full length portrait of The Queen in the Robes of the Order of the Thistle was the first of Her Majesty to be commissioned for Scotland, Sir William died suddenly in London on 5th February, 1970.

He was in his eighty -first year, and is survived by his wife, two sons, and
a daughter.

RSA Obituary transcribed from the 1970 RSA Annual Report