Peter Hutchinson

Hutchinson is known for his photo-based conceptual artworks in which he documents his ephemeral interventions on the landscape itself. These interventions often utilize flowers, food, and found objects to interact with the landscape, including the ocean, mountains, fields, beaches, volcanoes, icebergs, deserts, and other natural environments. Photographs of these interventions are accompanied by handwritten text describing the work, along with the date that the work occurred. Although sometimes, as a witty pun, the date on the work itself is not the date when it was actually realized (see example on Wikimedia Commons). Hutchinson was inspired by early landscape painting and garden art, explained in part by his English roots, and also by his early interest in plant genetics. He often focuses on subjects about relationship between humans, animals, and nature and observes processes and changes, such as ecological systems of growth and decay in nature. In his biographical notes to his exhibit of 1977 (Selected Works 1968–1977), Hutchinson documented an example of such early work at the Parícutin volcano in Mexico where, in 1970, he laid a 100-yard line of bread along faults at the crater edge. This bread was used to grow mold over a 6-day period with the change in color visible from photos of the volcano taken from the air. Hutchinson also used palindromes in his work "Step on no pets" in 1973, and "God saw I was Dog, Dog saw I was God" in 1976, set of 5 color and black and white photographs, a piece in the permanent collections of the Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre Pompidou, in Paris, France.

2019 Peter Hutchinson: Landscapes of My Life, deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, Lincoln, Massachusetts, USA 2015 "Peter Hutchinson", Fonds régional d'art contemporain (FRAC), Rennes, France 2009 "Peter Hutchinson – Erträumte Paradiese / Dreamed Paradises" (fifty-year review of work), Arp Museum, Rolandseck, Germany 2001 Thrown Ropes Remagen, Arp Museum Rolandseck, Germany

2022 "Vous êtes ici" at the Centre d'Art Contemporain de Pontmain (CNAP), Pontmain, France* * 2018 "A propos du Land Art" at the Fonds régional d'art contemporain (FRAC), Limoges, France 2016 "Sublime. The Tremors of the World" at the Centre Pompidou-Metz, France 2014 "Bad Thoughts, Collection Martijn and Jeannette Sanders" at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Netherlands 2012 "Ends of the Earth: Land Art to 1974" at the MOCA, Los Angeles, California 2003 "Look, it's snowing (Schizogeography of Everyday Life)" at the International Center for Art and Landscape, Isle of Vassivière, France 2001 "About Face: Selections from the Department of Prints and Illustrated Books" at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York 1999 "Sight Gags: Grotesque, Caricature and Wit in Modern and Contemporary Drawings" at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York 1991 "Unnatural Attitudes" at the International Center for Art and Landscape (Centre National d'Art et du Paysage - Vassivière et Limousin), Isle of Vassivière, France 1986 "Naked/Nude: Contemporary Prints" at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York 1976 "Photography for Collectors" at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York 1976 "The Golden Door: Artist-Immigrants of America, 1876–1976", Smithsonian Institution, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden 1975 "Collectors of the Seventies, Part I: Dorothy and Herbert Vogel" at MoMA PS1, New York 1975 "Artists Make Toys" at MoMA PS1, New York 1973 "Recent Acquisitions, 1968–1973” at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York

Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Germany Academy Art Museum, Easton, Maryland Cedar Rapids Museum of Art, Cedar Rapids, Iowa Daum Museum of Contemporary Art, Sedalia, Missouri Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, Nebraska Mississippi Museum of Art, Jackson, Mississippi Musée National d'Art Moderne, Centre Pompidou, Paris, France Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, USA Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Plains Art Museum, Fargo, North Dakota Portland Museum of Art, Portland, Maine Spencer Museum of Art, The University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas The Provincetown Art Association and Museum, Provincetown, Massachusetts University of Michigan Museum of Art, Ann Arbor, Michigan Weisman Art Museum, University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, Minnesota Whitney Museum of American Art