Hutchins, Maude Phelps (McVeigh)

Maude Phelps McVeigh Hutchins was born in 1899 in Long Island, New York. She attended St. Margaret’s School in Waterbury, Connecticut, as well as the Yale School of Fine Arts, where she received a B.F.A in 1926. She originally was a sculptor, but later moved on to painting and drawing.

Phelps married Robert Maynard Hutchins on September 10, 1921. The couple had three children-Frances Ratcliffe (Franja), Joanna Blessing, and Clarissa Phelps.

Hutchins was the author of several books, including Blood on the Dove (1965), Love is Pie (1952), Honey on the Moon (1964), and A Diary of Love (1950). She co-wrote and illustrated Diagrammatics (1932) with Mortimer Adler, professor of philosophy at the University of Chicago.

As a trained and popular artist, Hutchins had many gallery shows, including several at the Albert Roullier Galleries in Chicago, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Wilderstein and America Fine Arts society galleries in New York, the Brooklyn Museum, the Grand Central Art Galleries, the St. Louis Museum, the San Francisco Museum of Art, the Toledo Museum of Art, the New Haven Paint and Clay club, and others. She also was picked, along with two others, to represent Illinois at the third annual National Exhibition of American Art. In addition to this honor, some of her work was exhibited at a show of modern art at the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair.

In 1948 Maude and Robert Hutchins divorced. Maude moved to Southport, Connecticut soon thereafter. Their daughter Franja died on November 21, 1978.

Maude Phelps McVeigh Hutchins died on March 28, 1991 in Fairfield, Connecticut.

From the guide to the Hutchins, Maude Phelps McVeigh. Collection, 1930-1946, (Special Collections Research Center University of Chicago Library 1100 East 57th Street Chicago, Illinois 60637 U.S.A.)