Bill Hutson was born in San Marcos, Texas in 1936. The Art of Bill Hutson: Homestead is the first presentation of the artist’s work in his hometown. The exhibition is anchored by Homestead with signs, symbols and numbers, a painting that derives from the artist’s memory of his family’s multi-generational property at 733 Center Street. The painting contains numerous references to the site and to San Marcos, references that hold personal significance for the artist. According to Hutson, the confluence of abstraction and representation, coupled with the overlapping of forms and lack of over all depth, allows for a composition that is free of a specific time or space—as elusive as the memories it represents.

... there was an invincible quality about San Marcos, a concealed magnetism, covert vitality and sacrosanct ambiance generated by the town’s past. … I wanted to convey the natural and metaphysical dimensions of a homestead.

Bill Hutson

The fragility and the irony of the notion of ‘home’ and, specifically, ‘homesteading’ is reinforced by the painting’s title. A ‘homestead’ refers to a house with adjoining buildings and land, but also to the Homestead Act of 1862, which granted ownership of ‘public’ land to U.S. citizens and heads of household after five years of ‘proving up’ on their claim. Neither Native Americans, who lived on the land long before it was ‘settled’, nor Black Americans claimed these lands; indeed, they were still denied equal access to most public facilities when Hutson himself was a child. He writes: “In a subtle manner this tragic paradox, of ‘home’ located in a place with a significant and recent history of oppression, bondage and insecurity, is conveyed in Homestead with signs, symbols and numbers.”

After graduating from high school in 1954, Bill Hutson entered the Air Force and in 1960 went to San Francisco where he attended classes at the San Francisco Academy of Art. The artist moved to New York in 1963 and in the decades that followed also lived abroad in England, France, the Netherlands, Italy, Nigeria, and Senegal. He has been the subject of more than twenty solo exhibitions and has participated in over fifty group shows. His works are in numerous private and public collections, including The Brooklyn Museum, The Studio Museum, and The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. The artist currently lives in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where his art and archives are housed in the permanent collection of the Phillips Museum at Franklin & Marshall College.

Homestead at Texas State Galleries is part of The Art of Bill Hutson, a city-wide initiative to celebrate this illustrious artist’s career. The first collaboration in San Marcos of its kind, The Art of Bill Hutson is a partnership between the Calaboose African American History Museum, the Price Center, the San Marcos Art League, the Texas State Galleries, and the Walkers' Gallery; and is made possible with support from the San Marcos Arts Commission, the City of San Marcos, and the San Marcos Public Library.

In addition to the exhibition at Texas State Galleries—on view [September 15, 2021–May 18, 2022]—please find the art of Bill Hutson at other locations throughout San Marcos:

The Calaboose African American History Museum, The Art of Bill Hutson: The Opening [January 15–April 2]

The Price Center, The Art of Bill Hutson: Works in 3D [January 15–February 26]

The San Marcos Art Center, The Art of Bill Hutson: Image of Scorpius [January 12–March 20]

Walkers' Gallery @ the San Marcos Public Library, The Art of Bill Hutson: Trees are never finished. . . [January 15–April 9]