I have heard this evening (from an uncle) that a portrait of Queen Elizabeth II, painted by my Great-Grandfather; William Oliphant Hutchison, is due to be sold at auction by Bonhams in Edinburgh on 12th April 2016.
Here is the press release from the Bonhams website;
A portrait of Her Majesty the Queen by the Scottish artist, Sir William Oliphant Hutchison, is to be sold at Bonhams annual Scottish Sale on 12 April. It is estimated at £30,000-50,000.
Until it was acquired by its current owner, the painting hung for many years on the walls of the former Police Staff College at Bramshill House in Hampshire.
Sir William was born in Fife in 1889 and studied at Edinburgh College of Art (1909-12) under E. A. Walton, one of the Glasgow Boys group of artists, whose daughter he married. He also spent time working and studying in Paris.
On leaving college in 1912, he founded the Edinburgh Group which exhibited for three consecutive years before the First World War intervened.
As a painter, Hutchison specialized in portraits and after the retirement of Sir James Gunn assumed the mantle of Scotland’s premier society portraitist. The Scottish National Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh owns five of his works including a study of the Queen dating from 1956. The BBC owns another portrait of Her Majesty also from 1956 and Hutchison painted Prince Philip in the late 1950s. One of these is owned by the Royal College of Surgeons in Edinburgh, and one by the Defense Academy of the United Kingdom. His well-known portrait of the novelist Dorothy L. Sayers hangs in the National Portrait Gallery in London.
Bonhams Head of Scottish Art, Chris Brickley, said: “Sir William was a pillar of the Scottish art establishment – Director of the Glasgow School of Art from 1933 to 1943 and the President of the Royal Scottish Academy during most of the 1950s – but he also was a very fine artist. His works rarely appear at auction and I expect his portrait of the Queen to attract considerable interest.”
William Hutchison who was an Honorary Royal Academician, was knighted in 1953 and died in London in 1970.
Bonhams’ annual Scottish sale is now in its 17th year. As usual it will feature works by leading Scottish artists as well as a huge range of objects related to Scotland from highland dress and weapons to silver and glass; from books and furniture to ceramics. The sale will take place at Bonhams Edinburgh saleroom, 22 Queen Street, Edinburgh, EH2 1JJ over two days, 12 and 13 April.
Another website describes the painting as an “oil on canvas, 245cm x 153cm (8ft ½in x 5ft ¼in), in a carved giltwood frame surmounted by a coronet”.
Other details of the auction are available here; http://www.bonhams.com/auctions/23492/
Images of a selection of William Oliphant Hutchison’s paintings, that are owned by public collections in the UK, can be seen on the BBC’s “Your Paintings” website; http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/yourpaintings/artists/william-oliphant-hutchison
I have just found a piece about W.O. Hutchison, with photos of him (including one with the Queen), and of some of his paintings, here; http://tweedlandthegentlemansclub.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/sir-william-oliphant-hutchison.html
What I know about my Great-Grandfather W.O. Hutchison’s ancestry, I have posted here; https://afamilyhistoryblog.wordpress.com/family-trees/hutchison-tree/ or please see the Hutchison tag, and the HUTCHISON and OLIPHANT categories of this site.
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