Sinclair Hamilton Hitchings ’54

Sinclair Hamilton Hitchings ’54 passed away on January 18 in Edgartown, Massachusetts. He came to Dartmouth from Southport, Florida. He graduated from the Hill School. At Dartmouth he was an English major, a Senior Fellow and a member of the Quarterly. At graduation he was commissioned in the U.S. Navy and served for two years. In 1961 Hitchings was hired as keeper of the prints by the Boston Public Library, spending the next 44 years building the library’s collections of European and American artists. As a result, the library has one of the finest collections on paper, including prints, watercolors, drawings and photographs. A popular speaker, he gave lectures in Boston, across the country and in Canada. His subjects were wide and varied, from colonial Boston printers to 19th-century European artists and Boston contemporary artists. Hitchings was a prolific writer and editor and he taught classes at both Boston University and Simmons College. After retirement in 2006 he formed a nonprofit organization dedicated to living Boston artists called Art in Boston. He also founded a small museum on Newbury Street devoted to the work of local artists. In 1990 Hitchings was awarded an honorary degree from the Massachusetts College of Art and in 2003 he received an award of distinction from the Southern Graphics Print Conference. Boston declared June 30, 2005 (the date he retired), to be Sinclair Hitchings Day. He is survived by wife Catherine and sons Hamilton and Benjamin.