Bill
Hutson
(1936-2022)
Welkin Series #10
1977
acrylic on paper
22-1/2 x 29-1/2 inches
signed; signed, dated and titled verso, New York, 1977
The Phillips Museum of Art, Lancaster, PA, has Welkin Series #9 and #17 in its permanent collection, and have been featured in The Art of Bill Hutson (2022), a city-wide exhibition held simultaneously in different locations in his hometown of San Marcos, Texas. These works appear at the Calaboose African American History Museum and at the Walker’s Gallery in the San Marcos Public Library, as the part of the exhibition titled The Opening.
Welkin
An archaic term for the sky or the heavens, inspired Hutson’s immersive reflections on the celestial and the historical. He created the Welkin Series after living on Gorée Island in Senegal, where he frequently observed the sky above the Atlantic, a poignant vantage point:
“The sky above the island would have been the last thing [the slaves] saw when departing from Africa” (1)
These works typically feature sweeping, cloud-like formations rendered in acrylic on paper, with softened, rounded edges—Hutson often cut the top two corners to follow a gentle curve, a compositional signature apparent in these pieces. (2) The forms float against darkened backgrounds, their fluid shapes conveying both atmospheric phenomena and metaphoric weight.
The series bridges Hutson’s abstraction with deep historical memory and emotional geography, and is a meditation on visibility, loss, and transcendence.
Jones, Emmett Keith. “‘The Art of Bill Hutson,’ A Citywide Exhibition in San Marcos.” Glasstire, 14 Feb. 2022, glasstire.com/2022/02/09/the-art-of-bill-hutson-a-city-wide-exhibition-in-san-marcos/.
ibid
Hutson and Ed Clark Sitting in Front of Hutson's Studio, New York
1977-1978
“It’s not work, it’s more like prayer – not in a religious sense, but in a meditative sense. It’s about the exploration that rises out of that meditation.”
Selected recent exhibitions
Paris Noir, Centre Pompidou, Paris, 2024
Creating Community: Cinque Gallery Artists, The Art Students League, New York, NY, 2021
Homestead Texas State Galleries San Marcos, TX, 2021
Bill Hutson: Selections from the Phillips Museum of Art at Franklin & Marshall College, Governor’s Residence, Harrisburg, PA, 2020
The Shape of Abstraction: Selections from the Ollie Collection, Saint Louis Museum of Art, St. Louis, MO, 2020
UnCommon Collections: Selections from Fifteen Collectors, The David C Driskell Center, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, 2019
New York-Centric, The Art Students League, New York, NY, 2019
Constructing Identity, The Portland Museum, Portland, Oregon, 2017
Beyond Borders: Bill Hutson & Friends, Mechanical Hall Gallery, University of Delaware, Newark, 2016
Many Faces of Abstraction, Anita Shapolsky Gallery, New York, NY, 2015
Ttrans)formations: Studies in Form and Composition by Bill Hutson , the Phillips Museum of Art, Franklin & Marshall College, Lancaster, PA, 2015
Oba’s Room: Paintings and Painted Objects by Bill Hutson Watson Gallery, Wheaton College, Norton, MA, 2002
Tactile Images: Paintings and Painted Objects by Bill Hutson The Phillips Museum of Art, Franklin & Marshall College, Lancaster, PA, 2001
Bill Hutson was born in 1936 and raised in San Marcos, Texas in the historic African-American Dunbar neighborhood. After graduating from high school, he enlisted in the Air Force as an airborne radar technician. When he was discharged, he briefly took classes at the San Francisco Academy of Art, but quickly became disillusioned with the classroom setting, opting for a nomadic lifestyle, traveling all over the globe. He spent time in London, Amsterdam, Paris, Italy, Nigeria, and Senegal.
When he returned to New York City, he subleased Joe Overstreet’s studio, where he rubbed shoulders with Alvin Loving, Robert Blackburn, Vivian Browne, Frank Bowling, Peter Bradley, Melvin Edwards, Robert Indiana, James Little, Kenneth Noland, Howardena Pindell, Robert Rauschenberg, Larry Rivers, Haywood (Bill) Rivers, William T. Williams, and Jack Whitten.
Hutson was in Nigeria from 1974-76, working as the Graphic Arts Director in the Audio and Research Department at the National Museum in Lagos. In this position, he was tasked with traveling around West Africa filming events, including rare traditional ceremonies, all of which left a lasting impression. He also lived in Senegal near the Maison des Esclaves, the place where captured Africans were held until they were shipped across the Atlantic and sold as slaves. When he returned to New York City, he painted the Welkin Series.
Hutson took up a studio in New York and expanded his career through exhibiting and teaching. He received the Cassandra Foundation Award (1972), a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship (1974), and a CAPS grant (1980) From the mid-1970s through the early 2000s, Hutson taught at institutions including Ohio State University, Johns Hopkins University, and, from 1989 onward, Franklin & Marshall College, where he later served as the Jennie Brown Cook and Betsy Hess Cook Distinguished Artist-in-Residence
Despite being diagnosed as legally blind due to glaucoma in 2000, Hutson continued to create with vigor and vision. His artistic legacy includes over twenty solo exhibitions and more than fifty group shows internationally. Notably, his work featured in a 2025 group exhibition, Paris Noir, at the Centre Pompidou.
Hutson’s work is held in notable collections—including the Brooklyn Museum, the Studio Museum in Harlem, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and prominently, Franklin & Marshall College’s Phillips Museum, which houses the largest assembly of his works and archives.
Bill Hutson passed away on September 21, 2022, in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. His life and art remain a testament to the transcendent power of abstraction.