Arlene Anderson

Arlene Anderson Skutch (April 4, 1924 – 2012) was an American singer, actress, painter, and art teacher whose career spanned Broadway musicals in the 1940s and 1950s and a subsequent four-decade career as a visual artist and instructor in Westport, Connecticut.

Anderson was born in Fostoria, Ohio, to Lorenz and Ruth Anderson, and grew up alongside her sister Betty. Their father was an accomplished concert violinist who performed with a classical trio throughout the Midwest in the early twentieth century. Lorenz encouraged both daughters to study music and pursue professional careers in performance, and in 1945 Anderson relocated to New York City with her sister. The two auditioned together as a duet and went on to secure consistent work in major theatrical productions.

Anderson's Broadway career ran from 1944 to 1952 and included three musicals. She appeared in Bloomer Girl for 657 performances between 1944 and 1946, followed by Finian's Rainbow, in which she performed for 725 performances from 1947 to 1948. She also appeared in a revival of George and Ira Gershwin's Of Thee I Sing. Over the course of her time in the theater, Anderson worked alongside figures including Ira Gershwin, Harold Arlen, Burton Lane, Yip Harburg, Michael Kidd, Agnes de Mille, John Raitt, Celeste Holm, Ella Logan, and David Wayne. During this same period she also had a brief engagement on CBS radio's FBI in Peace and War and appeared on television with John Raitt on The Buick Circus Hour.

Anderson married screenwriter, advertising executive, and publisher Robert Skutch, and the couple settled in Westport, Connecticut, in 1952, purchasing an 1876 saltbox colonial home. After honeymooning in Cuba, where they were struck by the island's brightly painted architecture, they restored the house and painted it pink. A studio on the property, designed by postmodern architect Eliot Noyes, later became her art studio. Skutch had two children, Laura and Andrew, and following her divorce from Robert in 1965, she remained in the Westport house.

As her children began school, Skutch turned her attention to painting, studying under Ann Chernow, Gusti Wyman, Charles Reid, and Constance Kiermaier at the Silvermine School of Art in New Canaan, Connecticut. She went on to found the Pink House Painters Collective, a group of local painters who gathered weekly at her studio for instruction. The collective exhibited regularly and earned regional recognition and awards over the course of its existence. Skutch taught for 42 years and mentored dozens of students throughout that time.

In 1994, Skutch received a certificate recognizing her as an art teacher who had exerted a most significant influence on the development of a young artist, as determined by the 1993–1994 National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts Talent Search. She was also featured in Years in the Making, a documentary examining the careers of notable Westport artists over the age of 70. Following her death in 2012, Skutch was added posthumously to the Westport Arts Awards Heritage Honor Roll, which recognizes deceased artists as significant members of Westport's artistic heritage. She was inducted alongside writer J. D. Salinger and eight others.