Melissa Anne Hutton

Melissa Anne Hutton September 29, 1967 - December 4, 2025

Melissa Anne Hutton, a full-time artist and designer whose life was a testament to creativity, courage, and unwavering devotion to her craft, passed away on December 4, 2025, at the age of 58. She lived and worked in Napa, California.

Melissa came into the world with an eye for beauty and a mind built to make things. She began her artistic studies at the Ringling School of Art and Design before earning her BA in printmaking and film from the San Francisco Art Institute.

Early in her career, Melissa received commissions from restaurants, corporations, and private collectors — among them the iconic chairs for Brainwash, the celebrated and very hip SoMa coffee shop, bar, and laundromat that became a beloved San Francisco institution. These opportunities opened unexpected doors into corporate design and allowed her to stretch her artistic voice in new directions.

Rather than choosing between fine art and commercial work, she dissolved the boundary between them entirely — building and sustaining her own successful art and design business that united both passions with independence and vision.

Over the decades she explored an extraordinary range of mediums: painting, ceramics, stained glass, and large-scale works that commanded attention in galleries and public spaces alike. But screen printing was her first love, and she always came back to it. After years of exploration of large-scale painting, she returned to the medium that best expressed who she was — its bold color, its texture, its capacity for narrative layered into every pull of ink.

Her work was widely exhibited and deeply respected across California and beyond. Among her solo exhibitions: Coming Together, Falling Apart (2024) in San Francisco; Welcome to the Center of the USA (2018) at Lola Gallery; You Can Never Go Back (2011) at Hespe Gallery; and solo shows at the Lobby of 555 California (2011), Z Space at Theater Artaud (2010), Just Below the Surface (2008) at Kidder Smith Gallery in Boston, and Looking to Land (2007) at Hespe Gallery. She also presented duo exhibitions including Inside Out (2012) at Root Division Gallery and Works in Resin (2010) at Hespe Gallery.

Melissa's work appeared in prestigious group exhibitions throughout her career, among them Printmaking: Process & Possibility (2025) at Marin Society of Artists Gallery; Artists' Narratives: Their History and Identity (2025) at Belvedere Tiburon Art Gallery; FAFO (2025) at Lola Gallery; and two editions of The de Young Open (2020 and 2023) at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. She showed her work at major art fairs including Bridge Chicago Art Fair, Red Dot Art Fair, Art Santa Fe, and Bridge Miami Art Fair, and was honored in the 15th Anniversary Show at Hespe Gallery. In 2025, she participated in the Mill Valley Fall Arts Festival and the Maker's Market at di Rosa Center for Contemporary Art in Sonoma — continuing, right up until the end, to show up for art and for community.

That commitment to community was as much a part of Melissa as her talent. From 2005 through 2025 — two full decades — she supported the Root Division Annual Art Auction, giving generously and consistently to the ecosystem that nurtures artists at every stage. Her early exhibition Octopus (2006) was among many that established her as a vital and original presence in the Bay Area art world.

At home in her Napa studio, Melissa shared her creative space with her beloved Great Dane, Stanley — though she was quick to note, with characteristic humor, that he graciously allowed her to share it with him. His loyal companionship brought her daily joy. Stanley was never far from her side.

Melissa is survived by her loving sister, Heather; her mother, Barbara, and her husband, Craig; her father, Tom, and his wife, Tiffany; and her cherished niece and nephews, Frankie, Branford, and Lily. She is also survived by the many dear friends, collectors, and fellow artists whose lives she touched and whose work she championed.

Melissa Hutton's artistry, independence, courage, humor, and warmth will live on — in the vibrant, searching, deeply human body of work she leaves behind, and in everyone lucky enough to have known her.

Celebration of Life on Sunday, February 22, 2026 at Root Division in San Francisco. 2:00 PM

[email protected] for inquiries about Melissa's art ~