Robert Gemmell Hutchison


Robert Gemmell Hutchison RSA RSW was a Scottish landscape artist, specialising in coastal scenes. He belongs to the school of British Impressionism.

Life

He was born in Edinburgh on 1 July 1855 the first son of George Hutchison, a brass-founder, and his wife Margaret Forman.
He was educated in Edinburgh. After first training as a seal-engraver he was encouraged to pursue oil painting and trained under James Campbell Noble at the Trustees Academy on Picardy Place. He set up his own studio at 1 India Buildings in 1878 and was instantly successful, exhibiting at the Royal Scottish Academy in 1879 and at the Royal Academy in 1881. He shifted quickly from empty seascapes, largely of the Fife coast, to genre paintings, usually of young girls sitting on the coast.
He was elected an associate of the Royal Scottish Academy in 1903 and a full member in 1911. He was also elected to the Royal Society of British Artists, the Royal Institute of Oil Painters and the Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Watercolour. His first one-man show in London was in December 1928 at Barbizon House, when 34 of his pictures were displayed.
In later life he lived at 14 Craighall Terrace in Musselburgh, east of Edinburgh. He returned to Edinburgh in 1912, living at 8 St Bernards Crescent in the Stockbridge area.
In the 1930s he spent time with his daughter at her home in Coldingham, painting at St. Abbs. He died at his daughter’s house on 22 August 1936.
He is buried in Dean Cemetery on one of the curving paths to the south-west. His portrait is sculpted on the memorial by John Stevenson Rhind.

Known works

At the time of his death, works had been purchased by art galleries in Liverpool, Oldham, Glasgow, Bolton, Toronto, Blackpool, the Hamilton Trust, and the Fine Art Association of Canada.
An unspecified work by Hutchison was sold by Sotheby's for £32,000 in August 2001; the expected price was £10,000 to £15,000.

Family

In 1879 he married Janet Boe, a grocer’s daughter from Biggar, South Lanarkshire. They had four daughters and two sons.
His son, George Jackson Hutchison, was also an artist but was killed serving in the First World War. His daughter Marion Gemmell Hutchison was also an artist.