Alfred Heber Hutty (1857-1954)

Born in Grand Haven, Michigan, in 1877, Alfred Heber Hutty was a leading figure in the Charleston Renaissance group. Active between 1915 and 1940; the group’s work stirred other artists nationally, in response to the Charleston group’s widely distributed illustrations of life in the historic city.

Hutty had worked for Tiffany Studios and lived in Woodstock, New York. He went to Charleston looking for a warm climate in which to spend the winter, and from 1920 to 1924 he directed the School of the Carolina Art Association at the Gibbes Museum of Art. A regular summer resident until his death in 1954, he was also one of the founding members of the Charleston Etchers’ Club.

Hutty first established himself in Woodstock as a painter of evocative, impressionist landscapes in both oil and watercolor. After moving to Charleston, he took up etching and drypoint and became nationally known for his quiet, detailed prints of local landscapes  -especially trees – street scenes, historical buildings, farm life, and African-American residents. Hutty’s prints of the South Carolina Low Country won a number of awards and medals, including the Scarab Club Medal of the Detroit Institute of Art and the Logan Prize of the Art Institute of Chicago. Along with Alice Ravenel Huger Smith, Anna Heyward Taylor, and Elizabeth O’Neill Verner, Hutty is today considered one of the leading artists of the Charleston Renaissance.

Alfred Heber Hutty exhibited his work nationally at venues such as the Art Institute of Chicago, the National Academy of Design, and the American Watercolor Society. His work is held by the Gibbes Museum of Art, Charleston, (the single largest collection of his work), the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Greenville (SC) County Museum of Art, the Cleveland Museum of Art, among other museums and libraries. He also painted several murals in Charleston and took part in local historical preservation efforts.