Windsor Utley

Who was Windsor Utley?

Windsor Utley was an American musician, artist, teacher and gallery owner, closely associated with the painter Mark Tobey.

Utley was born in Laguna, California in 1920. He graduated from the Choate School in Connecticut, and attended Pumona College and the University of Southern California. Utley was a classically trained flautist who performed with the Tacoma Symphony in Washington in the early 1940s, and continued to teach and perform throughout his life. He did not begin painting until he was 19 years old. During World War II, as a conscientious objector Utley was an inmate of the Cascade Locks, Oregon Civilian Public Service camp, where he created several paintings and was himself painted by fellow-inmate Kemper Nomland.

After the war, Utley was accepted into Northwest Annual in 1945 where he met and was greatly influenced by Mark Tobey. The Smithsonian has a collection of 28 letters and 36 postcards sent to Utley from Mark Tobey and his companion Pehr Hallsten written in 1954 and 1955 while Toby and Hallsten were travelling in Europe. A handwritten letter from Tobey to Utley dated 1959 is also preserved in the Smithsonian archives of American art. Utley taught at Helen Bush School of Art, and later became the head of the art department at Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle.