Alfred Hutty traveled to Charleston for the first time in 1920 to teach a season of painting classes at the Gibbes Museum of Art. Overwhelmed by the city's beauty, he returned every winter for the next thirty years. Though his main studio and home remained in the artists' colony at Woodstock, New York, Hutty became one of the most prolific interpreters of Charleston and its surrounding landscapes during the first half of the twentieth century. His broadly exhibited etchings and paintings enticed a number of artists to visit the region.