Hutchinson Commons (also known as Hutchinson Hall)

7 min readMay 7, 2021

Charles Lawrence Hutchinson (March 7, 1854 — October 7, 1924) was a prominent Chicago business leader and philanthropist who is best remembered today as the founding and long-time president of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Background[edit]

Charles and Frances Hutchinson were residents of Chicago’s elite Prairie Avenue, living for over three decades in this house at 2709. The original house was designed in 1881 by George O. Garnsey and built in the Queen Anne style, and remodeled as shown here in 1888 to French Gothic tastes by Francis M. Whitehouse. After the neighborhood became less fashionable in the early years of the 20th century, the Hutchinsons moved to a cooperative apartment on E. Walton Place and their former home became a boarding house.[2] It has since been demolished.

Hutchinson was born in Lynn, Massachusetts in 1854 to Benjamin P. Hutchinson (1828–1899)[3] and Sarah (née Ingalls) Hutchinson (1833–1909), and relocated with his family to Chicago in 1856 after a brief stay in Milwaukee. In Chicago Benjamin Hutchinson founded Chicago Packing & Provision Co., which for many years was the leading meat processor in the United States.[4] In 1863 he became one of the first directors of the First National Bank of Chicago [5] and in 1881 founded the Corn Exchange Bank[6] (with subsequent mergers and acquisitions now Bank of America)[7] and as a member of the Chicago Board of Trade was known as one of the city’s wealthiest and most colorful speculators.[8] Charles graduated from the Chicago public schools in 1872 and entered the business world as a clerk in his father’s office, becoming a junior partner with his father in 1875 in the firm B.P. Hutchinson and Son., commission merchants.[9] Although he never attended college, he was a founding trustee[10] and the first treasurer of the University of Chicago,[11] positions he held until his death. He married Frances Angeline Kinsley, daughter of Herbert Milton Kinsley, on May 26, 1881.[12] Herbert Kinsley had, in the last decades of the 19th Century, become one of Chicago’s premier caterers and restaurateurs after having made his reputation during his peripatetic career in part by hosting a ball for the Prince of Wales at the Anglo-American Hotel in Hamilton, Ontario Canada.[13]

Because of his contributions to the world of philanthropy, art and education Hutchinson was twice awarded honorary degrees by what is today Tufts University, the first one a being a Master of Arts in 1901,[14] and the second one an LL.D in 1920.[15] Hutchinson was also the recipient of an honorary Master of Arts degree by Harvard University in 1915.[16] For his service as consul general for Greece in Chicago[17] during the World’s Columbian Exposition,[18] Hutchinson was awarded the Badge of the Order of the Redeemer by King George I of Greece in 1908.[19] He was granted a knighthood by King Albert I of Belgium in 1919 for his work with the Belgian Relief Committee during World War I,[20] and was a supporter of the founding of the League of Nations at the war’s end.[21]

Hutchinson served as Chairman, Committee of Fine Arts for the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893.[22]

The Art Institute of Chicago[edit]

“Established in 1879 from the remnants of a foundering art academy, the Art Institute of Chicago grew into a sturdy organization largely through the efforts of … Hutchinson, who served as its president from 1882 to 1924.”[23] Although Hutchinson’s personal wealth was generated thru banking, grain speculation and meatpacking enterprises that his father had established after coming to Chicago in 1856, Charles L. Hutchinson’s “greatest enthusiasm was for art and the establishment and growth of the Art Institute”.[24] Founded on May 24, 1879[25] as The Chicago Academy of Fine Arts; The Art Institute assumed its present name in 1882.[26] Hutchinson was a founding trustee of the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts, and recognizing his energy and vision, was named by the board of trustees as its first president three years later when it was renamed the Art Institute of Chicago. As one of many accolades conferred on Hutchinson by the Art Institute, the trustees passed a resolution On October 22, 1907 dedicating Gallery 32 as the Charles Lawrence Hutchinson Gallery of Old Masters to commemorate Hutchinson’s twenty-fifth anniversary as president of the institution.[27] After he died in 1924, his obituary notice in The Bulletin of the Art Institute noted that “His entire life was devoted to public service, but his service to the Art Institute was so intimate, his devotion so complete that it is not possible to measure it. He was The Art Institute, and it will stand as his most permanent monument”.[28]

Hutchinson Commons (also known as Hutchinson Hall)

Contents

Background[edit]

The Art Institute of Chicago[edit]

Written by Ar Rabble