Recollections of Mr
Glenton Hutton as at end 2003
Glenton Hutton was born in 1946 and grew up at Shepherds Lane, Penola, South Australia next to the farm of Mike Heysen, the son of Sir Hans Heysen, eminent Australian landscapist. There were early inspirational nudges in there for Glen. The subjects personal art evolution began consciously 52 years ago when he was aged 5.
Attended Avondale Tertiary College situated at Cooranbong, South-West of Newcastle. This was just eleven miles away from Glens art hero Sir William Dobell, Wangi Wangis very famous resident.
Glen became acquainted that year with another great early influence, whilst still aged 19 years, when he met the legendary artist/adventurer Ian Fairweather on Bribie Island after having viewed that veteran's retrospective show in Adelaide's state gallery.
For some of the 1970s Glen traveled widely within Australia, but returned regularly to bushland isolation in jungle near Hartley's Creek in Far North Queensland. In the mid 1970s Glen was tutored briefly by Arthur Murch, Sydney master of oils and bronzes, in color matching etc. Glen attended the evening sketch club during this period at the Royal Art Society with Joshua Smith and others of renown and accomplishment. He met up with pre-eminent Australian artist/painter Clifton Pugh and mystic clay sculptor William Rickets, as well as Joseph Brown and Tristram Beaust.
Whilst visiting the Queensland's southeast corner, Glen, on hearing of Ian Fairweather passing, traveled to Bribie Island, and after a few days began to carve a memorial featuring Mr Fairweather portrait in a living tree.
Glen met collector of oriental and western art, James Craig, in Melbourne, with whom he made an exchange. Glen's cassowary picture and his portrait of Ian Fairweather as a pipe-smoker were swapped for two Peter Paul Rubens studies in red chalk, of heads. These latter works had previously lived in the collection of Sir Ralph Packer, and now at Glen's sisters home in Upwey, Victoria.
Glen Hutton's first public art display was in the Sydney Opera House as a part of a back-drop to the second World Wilderness Congress. His first one-man exhibition followed at the Upstairs Gallery in Cairns. The art shown even then had the feel of a retrospective. Most available work sold.
He painted murals depicting a pre-European aboriginal family moving down the jungle trail from Black Mountain to Wanghetti Beach in 'Frescos' restaurant. This was later destroyed by fire. Listed in Max Germaine's Art Dictionary 'Artists and Galleries of Australia'.
Created a 'sign/mural' later known as the Palm Cove sign, which was 20 feet long and featured a panorama of the coast as well as localities and events. It was unveiled by the Queensland Minister for the Environment, Martin Tenni, and attended by Tom Pyne, yuppies, hippies, architects, a professor and two saronged flower-bedecked Canadian girls who served wine and food at the roadside whilst the drivers of passing cars gaped. Glen used a 6' x 4' panel, gauche paints and created a vast bush landscape featuring, Chillagoe's 'Cathedral Bluff' from which the author's face peered out across the plain Mt Rushmore style. The book was 'From the Limebluffs' which presented bush anecdotes and the author was Doreen McGrath. It has sold well ever since. Glen also worked for a week with John Taylor architects in Melbourne.
A joint display at the Upstairs Gallery of the 'Talented Quartet' - Glen Hutton, Heinz Steinman, Diana Crook (her debut) and gifted rainforest artist Les Cameron, Sold well, and most of Glen's works sold. Glen was commissioned by the late international entertainer/composer Peter Allen to paint a visual version of his song I Still Call Australia Home. Glen presented it to Mr Allen the following year at Oak Beach.
Created a large piece featuring North Queensland wildlife, named 'Quiet Riot'. This was soon to be housed in the Cosmopolitan Building on the Gold Coast.
Glen Hutton became the first 'unofficial/official' artist employed to document the renowned Roversleigh fossil expedition with Dr Michael Archer's team.
Exhibited the resulting visual saga dubbed 'The Riversleigh Suite' at the Kewarra Beach Resort, where it was accompanied by a TV documentary on Riversleigh, which was its world premier. The collection was later shown in Melbourne at the Science Fiction Convention.
Glen held a major exposition of masterfully innovative styles against a counter-productive backdrop of, and the appalling odds of, art theft, life threats and petty rivalries amongst the people around him. It was opened by Ron Davis, the mayor of Cairns, in the Pacific International Hotel.
After two years of working in menial hotel jobs Glen, with abject grief and traumas racking his personal life, underwent another retreat to rainforest lands - desperation prompted - this time to near Mena Creek. An incomprehensible nightmare for Glen. Books and much art was lost there in Mena Creek, as well as historical items and photos of museum level interest. The only positive creation was an inspired mural at a significantly desanctified community church!
Glen donates a mural in Cairns to a disabled man.
Giving it gigantean effort, Glen made mixed subject murals for the now defunct Innisfail store called 'Miztique Creations', including two ethereal angel works for the women proprietors.
Mural donated of tropical coast as a decoration for Cairns TAFE College Students Room. The picture is possibly now destroyed.
The one major work created at this time was a mural of Indian Deities in the home of an Indian Australian friend Kagaisee Gleeson at South Johnstone township. Pictures of the mural can be seen here
A prominent canvas work featuring a double portrait of English couple Kevin and Helen Hopper at the scene of their 'helicopter wedding' held above Heart Reef near Shute Harbour. The work is now in their possession in the City of York.
Series of eighteen history paintings 4' high illustrating early Australian gold-mining. There is included a visual documentation of the exploits of explorer and gold speculator James Venture Mulligan. Housed at Smithfield Tavern, Cairns. Pictures of the Australian goldrush can be viewed here.
Portrait of veteran Torres Strait singer Rita Mills. This was used on her final professional music CD cover and named 'Mata Nice', and also used in her concurrently done life story video.
A big personal highlight was in that year the visit to England and to Glen's patrilineal ancestral homeland in 'The Borders' of Scotland. Also viewed, at great confirmative value, various classical paintings housed in London at the National Gallery on Trafalgar Square, The Courtholdt Institute and the Tate Britain, both situated near the brown Themes. Glen Hutton also took in the ancient Egyptian, Mesopotamian and Greek sculptures etc at the British Museum. Whilst staying in York, Glen photographed and drew medieval architecture around that city.
Cover illustration, done some years before comes out of Glen H. Dawes book 'Origin of Genesis', which features speculation on the origins and pre-history of human kind. Further experiments at the East Innisfail dwelling with the indispensable techniques of Renaissance oil painting similar to those used by the old masters Titian and Leonardo. When 'oil' was in its infancy these men pioneered wax-oil glazing methods on the Italian peninsula. There are many frame making and craft making skills now in the offing to explore. The actively nefarious rednecks have dropped back and the good and the intelligent have largely taken their place. Praises to the Most High! G. R. Hutton |