Browse Exhibits (2 total)

Pen & Ink Drawings

This exhibit is a "work in progress" and will be up-dated periodically.  It contains a series of pen and ink drawings produced between 1942-1945 which depict Hutchinson's topsy-turvy daily life framed by the social contexts of World War II and queer kinship.

Hutchinson produced this series of drawings as personal correspondence in an intimate exchange of reader relations, rather than as public exhibition pieces exposed to the silencing glare of the universal avant-garde gaze.  These small pen and ink drawings portray her topsy-turvy daily family life produced by the social context of World War II.  As scholars such as Lillian Faderman have explored, the war produced some queer couples and strange families while the heteronormative husbands and fathers fought overseas.  Hutchinson became the “head of household” in one such queer family living in a New York apartment on East 58th Street.  Hutchinson’s friend, Wilma Breit experienced severe depression after giving birth to a daughter (Amy Elisabeth).  While Wilma’s husband was away overseas, she appears to have been unable to care for the new baby as well as her older son, and was probably institutionalized in a psychiatric facility.  As Amy Elisabeth’s godmother, Hutchinson jumped in to care for the children with the help and support of her partner, Ruth Layton.

Self-portraits

This exhibit is a "work in progress" and will be up-dated periodicaly.  It contains self-portraits of Mary E. Hutchinson, produced from 1927-1950.