With its proximity to the cultural hub of New York City and its quieter suburban and rural landscapes, Connecticut was fertile ground for artists and writers in the period of Modernist movements between 1913 and 1979. Many of these cultural figures are well known through biographical and critical studies. Creative Places seeks to show how place played a significant role in creative work, and how in turn the artists and writers influenced communities in Connecticut.
Albert McCutcheon
Painting/Drawing
1901 – 1990
WPA artist
- Biography/Description of Work
A Middletown native, McCutcheon attended the Durant School, and took private lessons in art, history, language, and music for four years. He studied at the Yale School of Fine Arts, and later at the Julian Academy in Paris in 1923. The next year he married Hilde Anderson, a fellow artist. He studied abroad once again in 1928, and later from 1932 to 1935. For a period of several years McCutcheon worked as a free lance easel and mural painter, and interior designer. He was a colonial and ecclesiastical restorer. Under the WPA he completed a series of murals entitled ‘The Epic of Middletown’ for the Woodrow Wilson High School in Middletown in 1938. He also painted a mural for the Durant School Kindergarten (now Middletown Senior Center) and 15 easel pictures that were allocated to Woodrow Wilson High School, Fort Wright, Undercliff Sanatorium, the Municipal Air Terminus [Brainard Field] in Hartford, and the Hindley School in Darien. His style of painting was described by the WPA officials as “at once modern and individual.” They went on to note that his pictures “unlike many of the modern school, are predominantly gay, airy, and harmonious.”
- Sources view
- WPA Artist’s Work Card; WPA Biography; “Middletown Man’s Fine Murals Halted by Recent Ruling of WPA Officials,” Hartford Courant, January 3, 1937; “Free Art Gallery At Marlborough Open for Summer,” Hartford Courant, July 27, 1938; “Aviation Board Invites Corrigan To Visit Airport,” Hartford Courant, August 9, 1938; [Obituary], Hartford Courant, April 9, 1990.
- Associated Resource(s)