Bille Hutt,78, folk artist, activist dies
wazzzy
Billie Hutt, a self-taught folk artist in the Grandma Moses style and
winner of the Santa Fe Gallery Association's 2000 Winter Fiesta poster
image contest, died last week in Las Vegas, Nev., at age 78.
Hutt and her husband, Ronald A. Labe, who died in 2004, lived in
Manhattan during the early years of their marriage and associated with
many of the era's liberal activists. They marched against the war in
Vietnam, for civil rights for blacks and for the rights of women to
equal pay for equal work.
Before becoming an artist, Hutt went by the name Beverly Labe. She
took up painting after the family fell on hard times and, embarrassed
by her first endeavors, used her maiden name. After moving west, she
joined the Santa Fe Society of Artists and showed her work at flea
markets and in the outdoor art market in the parking lot behind The
First National Bank of Santa Fe.
Her work is in a number of Santa Fe restaurants and galleries. She
stopped painting after the death of her husband two years ago and left
Santa Fe, according to her daughter, Gillian Labe.
Joyce Ice, director of the Museum of International Folk Art, said the
museum has several pieces by Hutt in its collection. "She was a
wonderful character," Ice said. "She did memory paintings -- family
scenes, rites of passage -- documenting cultural traditions, and she
was able to infuse Santa Fe and New Mexico, her adopted home, into
that."
Hutt's daughter said her mother was born in Brooklyn, N.Y., in 1927.
She graduated from Hofstra University and got a master's degree in
journalism from Carleton College in Minnesota. She was editor of a
small newspaper in Pottsdam, N.Y., then joined the U.S. Air Force as a
civilian and worked as social director in Japan and other places. Labe
said her mother told her the job was a lot of fun because it was just
"her and tons of men."
Hutt met her husband, a surveyor, at an Alaska bar called Tommy's
Elbow Room. "They claimed to be the only two Jews in Fairbanks in
1958," Gillian said.
The couple lived briefly with other exiles on the island of Ibiza.
They moved to New York City in 1959, and their only child was born two
years later. The family lived on the Lower East Side. Ronald Labe
founded an investment company that supported projects for social
change.
The Labes immersed themselves in Democratic politics. Hutt worked for
City Councilwoman Bella Abzug until the two had a falling out. Their
friends included actor Zero Mostel, director Robert Downey Sr. (Putney
Swope), actor James Earl Jones, The Mod Squad's Clarence Williams III,
poet Allen Ginsberg and radical Abbie Hoffman.
Hutt organized block parties to clean up their neighborhood, often
working with members of the motorcycle group Hell's Angels.
Gillian Labe recalls visiting singer Barbra Streisand's brownstone for
a fundraiser and being introduced to the star. She attended private
school (and Camp Johnny Appleseed), but her parents both took to the
streets to try to win higher wages for teachers. They campaigned for
George McGovern and spent summers at their vacation home in Lake
George. Hutt took gourmet cooking classes from Chinese chef Virginia
Lee.
In the 1970s, the family moved to Lake George full time. The couple
became antique dealers and traveled around the area. Many of their
investments failed, however, and Hutt began decorating Christmas
ornaments and whirligigs using leftover house paint to make money.
Hutt's early art -- cats sitting on quilts -- was not too
sophisticated, but it paid a few bills, her daughter said.
Eventually, the Labes could no longer hold onto their house, and they
decided to move. Gillian, then a Hunter College student, joined them.
They ended up in Albuquerque and started coming up to Santa Fe to sell
Hutt's art at the flea market here.
"I've got a painting (she did) of them in their 1966 Chevy pickup
truck driving north in the early morning," Gillian said.
In 1987, the Labes moved to Santa Fe. Hutt was selling more and more
art. Her husband did the framing, loading and unloading.
Hutt's subjects included her beloved Brooklyn Dodgers (whom she never
forgave for moving out of New York), a train trip through the
segregated South in the 1930s, a seven-panel piece titled Exodus that
begins with the massacre of Jews in Russia, Ellis Island, a lowrider
wedding and the pilgrimage to Chimayó.
"She painted in a fanciful, simple, amusing style, and she had a great
sense of humor," said former gallery owner Leslie Muth. Muth, who took
Hutt's work to the Outsider Art Fair in New York for a number of
years, said it resonated with people who had similar childhood
memories.
Her art has "got a good feeling to it," said Evelyn Ward, who sells
Hutt's work at Independent Artists Gallery, 101 W. San Francisco St.
Collector Debby Fishbein of Santa Fe said that what she and her
husband, Marty, liked about Hutt's work is that "she had a sharp,
discerning eye and a great sense of humor. Whether the subject was the
Santa Fe Plaza, a lowrider wedding or a baseball stadium, the work
always makes one smile."
Gillian Labe said her mother will be cremated in Las Vegas, but her
ashes will be buried next to those of her husband in the National
Cemetery in Santa Fe.