An older woman wearing pince-nez eyeglasses concentrates while drawing from a tablet. The subject is unknown at this time, although she bears a slight resemblance to Emma Goldman, whom the artist had photographed about 15 years earlier. (Hutchinson was still working in Chicago the year this photo was taken and Goldman was living in France so it’s unlikely.)

Eugene Raymond Hutchinson 1880-1957

A short biography of Hutchinson’s early life was originally written by and is courtesy of William H. Wilken, a present-day Hutchinson family member. Wilken describes Eugene Raymond Hutchinson as:

A Floridian, born in Tampa in April 1880, Eugene Hutchinson’s family failed at orange planting and moved to Rockville, Indiana in 1884. The death of his father in 1888 and the remarriage of his mother prompted the removal of the family to Danville, Illinois, where he grew up and learned the art of photography. He apprenticed as a teenager with a Broadway society gallery, perhaps Joseph Hall, although later in life he claimed to have trained in the N.Y. studio of English born portraitist W.E. Histed.

A very comprehensive Wiki entry for the photographer conjectures a different birthplace but provides a full accounting of his later professional life:

Based in Chicago from about 1910 to 1930, Hutchinson initially specialized in portrait work, winning favor most notably among leading lights in the world of literature, the arts and progressive politics, his clients including Rupert Brooke, Carl Sandburg, Edgar Lee Masters, Anna Pavlova, Emma Goldman,and William Jennings Bryan.

After moving to New York City during the Great Depression, Hutchinson perhaps for economic reasons turned his camera increasingly to industrial subjects, associating himself with Underwood & Underwood, the famous producer of stereoscopic images. His interest in photography as art, however, endured. It was reflected perhaps most dramatically in his “Eighty-Five Years,” a study of two, thin clasped hands against a black dress that was one of 155 prints selected by the Royal Photographic Society of London for a 1935 exhibit in which the National Academy of Design belatedly recognized photography as a field of art.

Probably born in Rockville, Indiana, Eugene was raised by a mother who was left a widow with three children before she was 30. As a teenager, he found his way to New York City where he apprenticed with a Broadway society photographer. One source indicates that his mentor was Joseph Hall. Another states that it was “Histead.” -Wikipedia (2025) continues…