William Oliphant Hutchison was born in Kirkcaldy, Scotland on 2 July 1889. He was the fifth child in the family of four sons and two daughters of Henry William Hutchison, of Kinloch, a Kirkcaldy businessman and his wife, Sarah Hannah Key. William was educated at Kirkcaldy High School, Cargilfield. He later went on to Rugby School. He entered Edinburgh College of Art in 1909, where he studied until 1912, leaving to form the Edinburgh Group with a number of fellow artists. The Edinburgh Group exhibited together in 1912, 1913, 1919, 1920, and 1921, adopting the name formally for the last three (post-war) exhibitions. The members of the formal group were: John R Barclay (1884-1963), Hutchison, Dorothy Johnstone (1892-1980), Mary Newbery (1892-1985), Eric Robertson (1887-1941), J G Spence Smith (1880-1951), A R Sturrock (1885-1953), who was married to Newbery, D M Sutherland (1883-1973), and Cecile Walton (1891-1956). Others who exhibited in the pre-war exhibitions were David Alison (1882-1955), H A Cameron (fl. 1901-23), W M Glass (1885-1965), and J W Somerville (d.1916). They painted in a variety of figurative styles and attracted a good deal of public and critical attention. In 1920 a reviewer in The National Outlook wrote: ‘Usually people look to the Edinburgh Group … for something unique rather than universal; for something of pagan brazenness rather than parlour propriety. Half Edinburgh goes to [the New Gallery in] Shandwick Place secretly desiring to be righteously shocked, and the other half goes feeling deliciously uncertain it may be disappointed by not finding anything sufficiently shocking.’ Interest in the group was fanned by the notoriously involved love lives of several of the members, most notably Eric Robertson. Hutchison had by far the most distinguished career of any of the group. Hutchison studied in Paris, and worked primarily as a portrait painter, although he also exhibited landscape and figure paintings. He served with the Royal Garrison Artillery during the Great War in Malta and in France, where he was severely wounded. Shortly after demobilisation in 1918, he and his wife took a studio flat in York Place, Edinburgh. They remained there only until 1921, when they moved to London. Hutchison practised as a portrait painter and had some measure of success. He exhibited regularly at the Royal Academy, joined the Savage Club, settled at Cholmondley Lodge at Richmond in Surrey and had a wide circle of friends, mainly connected with the arts. He was appointed Director of Glasgow School of Art in 1933 and oversaw connections between the School and the Empire Exhibition of 1938 and the first four years of the Second World War. Although he had had no formal teaching experience, Hutchison was an excellent director. He painted in the academic tradition, but was always ready to help and encourage students and young artists who aspired to the avant-garde. He maintained a keen interest in all staff and students, and those serving with the armed forces were sent cards and presents from the school. He painted the portraits of the great and the good, including The Queen, Prince Philip, and the Queen Mother. His full-length portrait of The Queen in Thistle robes, commissioned by the Edinburgh Merchant Company in 1956, is among his finest works. Amongst other portraits can be mentioned J Ramsay MacDonald (House of Commons), Dorothy L Sayers (National Portrait Gallery, London), Sir James Gunn (his Diploma Work, Royal Scottish Academy), and Sir Sydney A Smith, for which he received a Gold Medal in the Paris Salon of 1961. In 1941 he became President of the Glasgow Art Club. He was elected RSA in 1943 and Member of the Royal Society of Portrait Painters in 1948. He served as President of the Scottish Royal Academy in the period 1950-59 and in 1965, became President of the Royal Society of Portrait Painters. He retired from Glasgow School of Art in 1943 to paint portraits in both Edinburgh and London. He was knighted in 1953. Hutchison was a retiring and modest man, but had a good speaking voice and his servicers were in demand as a public speaker. He was also a great raconteur and his reminiscences of his early days in London were a never-failing source of pleasure and amusement to family and friends alike. Much like Philip Connard, his predecessor at Cholmondley Lodge, Hutchison spent his twilight years painting the local Surrey landscape. He died suddenly at his home in February 1970.