Remembering Christopher Horton
Posted: 6/22/2005

Christopher N. Horton

Christopher Horton's "Abstraction" (oil on canvas, 1964), is part of the retrospective exhibition at the Silpe Gallery celebrating Horton's life and work.
The life and work of the late Christopher N. Horton, professor emeritus of experimental studio at the Hartford Art School, is being celebrated with a remembrance ceremony and a retrospective exhibition of his art.

The remembrance ceremony, which is open to the public, will take place on Sunday, June 26, from 1 to 3 p.m., in the Hartford Art School’s Silpe Gallery.

An exhibition titled Chris Horton: Retrospective opened in the Silpe Gallery on Monday, June 20, and will continue through Thursday, June 30.

Horton, who retired in 1999 after 30 years of teaching, died on Jan. 1, 2005, at the age of 68. Horton was known for his devotion and dedication to his students, and in 1997, he received the university’s Roy E. Larsen Award for Excellence in Teaching.

Horton’s art—a diverse collection of abstract and realist drawing, painting, and sculpture—has been exhibited throughout New England and beyond. Interested in the social and cultural interaction of art and its context, Horton frequently was invited to lecture, serve as visiting artist, take part in panel discussions, and publish in a variety of forums. In 1990 he received a grant from the University of Rhode Island to create a 30-by-5-foot mural consisting of topological maps showing the effect of rising temperatures on coastal sea levels. Horton and Sherry, his wife of 39 years, founded and directed the Cummington (Mass.) Community of the Arts from 1969 to 1972.

A graduate of Amherst College, Horton received a master’s degree in painting from Wesleyan University and did postgraduate study at the Tyler School of Art in Rome. He served in the U.S. Army in Korea and had previously taught in Suffield, Conn., schools and at Wesleyan University before joining the University of Hartford faculty in 1968.

Silpe Gallery hours are Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. For more information, contact Monica Mills at 860.768.4392, or mmills@hartford.edu.