Flowers on Window

The very versatile artist Marshal C. Hutson was born in Nottingham but came to Ireland, to Cork, his mother’s homeplace, in 1930 to teach at the Crawford School of Art. His contribution to the visual culture of Cork was considerable, as an artist who could paint and sculpt in wood and bronze to any scale and in many genres. Hutson taught at the Crawford (1930–66) where his pupils included the almost legendary Seamus Murphy. He painted landscapes, portraits, still-life subjects, and religious murals and he and his wife, Clare Kelleher executed designs for the Irish Ballet Company, working closely with Joan Denise Moriarty, and produced a number of fine portrait busts, notably of sitters such as the actors Jimmy O’Dea and Micheál MacLiammóir; musicians Aloysius Fleischmann and Seán ÓRiada, and the politician William T. Cosgrave. He exhibited with the RHA from 1931 until the 1980s and sculpture commissions include work in UCC, Cork Harbour and Cork Public Library. As a mark of recognition for his contribution to the college, the Crawford School of Art created an annual award in his name in 1998. Following his death at the age of 98, RTE broadcast a documentary of his life and this was followed by Marshal C. Hutson – A Retrospective at the Crawford Art Gallery in 2004. Marshall C. Hutson was in many ways typical of the kind of artist who was persuaded into teaching - utterly dependable and traditional. He did not invent new forms or new techniques, but he perfected and taught a wide range of them to the highest academic standards of the day. Flowers on Window reflects this conventionality but within the constraints of the familiar he could produce, as here, delightful, unpretentious paintings or artworks in whatever the medium he was working in happened to be.