For the immediate world, everything is to be discerned, for him who can discern it, and centrally and simply, without either dissection into science, or digestion into art, but with the whole of consciousness, seeking to perceive it as it stands: so that the aspect of a street in sunlight can roar in the heart of itself as a symphony, perhaps as no symphony can: and all of consciousness is shifted from the imagined, the revisive, to the effort to perceive simply the cruel radiance of what is.

With a heavy heart, the Harvard Film Archive pays tribute to Peter Hutton (1944-2016), a visionary artist and beloved professor, mentor and friend.

For over four decades Peter Hutton used 16mm film, most often silent and black-and-white, to meticulously craft intimate, lush, beautiful portraits of places—cities, landscapes, the sea—which drew upon traditions of 19th-century landscape painting, still photography and early cinema.

Born in Detroit to a former seaman, Hutton followed his father’s example, paying his way through art school by working as a merchant marine. Initially spending his first ten creative years as a painter and sculptor, he turned to cinema after discovering the underground film scene in Los Angeles and San Francisco in the 1960s. Bruce Conner, Harry Smith and Kenneth Anger were important influences.