ART
Growing up in the imposing shadow of Jim Hutchinson,
Kevin Hutchinson has emerged as an artist in his own right
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HIS FATHER’S SON
ED DRONDOSKI
Kevin Hutchinson, like his father Jim Hutchinson, is a successful artist who has made a name for himself with his oil paintings of tropical scenes. Hutchinson
lives in Stuart with his wife, Mary, a former city commissioner.
BY CATHERINE ENNS GRIGAS
ne of Jim Hutchinson’s most treasured photographs
is of himself painting at an easel while
his oldest son, Kevin, then just a toddler, stands
next to him holding a paintbrush.
If you said his artist father — or his artist uncle,
A.E. “Beanie” Backus — has influenced Kevin
Hutchinson, it would be an understatement.
“It’s kind of hard not to be an artist in my family,” says
Hutchinson, 46. “It’s almost the natural thing to do.”
But that artistic legacy has had its downside, too. “I always
painted, but sometimes only a few paintings a year,” says the
Stuart resident. “As a teenager, I really rebelled and I thought
there wasn’t much of a future for me. I was really intimidated
by my dad. It’s like having Michelangelo as your father. I
always felt I could never be as good as him.”
Kevin, though, has made his own name as an artist. Collectors
seek out his tropical landscapes and seascapes, which are
full of vibrant color and detail. Hutchinson has branched out
from the backcountry subject matter his father so masterfully
depicts with his own paintings of subjects such as marine life,
boats, and scenes of the Bahamas and Abaco Islands.
Hutchinson, who was born in Stuart, got a degree in design
from the University of Hawaii. “My mom always told me if
I didn’t go to college, I would end up digging ditches,” he
says. “A year after I graduated, there I was, digging ditches.”
Opportunities in his field in Hawaii were few, says
Hutchinson, so he returned to Stuart, where he met his future
wife, Mary (who recently retired as a Stuart city commissioner)
but not before spending a year learning yacht design
at the Maine Maritime Academy.
Always interested in boats, Hutchinson balanced a job in
boat design for the Stuart company Applied Concepts, while
making his artwork on the side.
When the company folded, the Hutchinsons had been mar-
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