Description
This collection contains correspondence, photographs, 35mm slides, newspapers, memorandums, programs, and other material belonging
to Winston Hewitt, an artist and CSUDH emeritus faculty.
Background
Winston Russell Hewitt (1922-2006) was born in Minnesota to Lilian Nyquist and John Russell Hewitt. Hewitt had one brother,
John "Jack" Hewitt a doctor who was married with three children (including a nephew named Todd) to Marguerite Todd. Hewitt
spent most of his childhood in Casselton, North Dakota where his father founded a hardware business. Hewitt attended North
Dakota State College at sixteen, and enlisted in the Army where he was trained as a cryptographer in the Office of Strategic
Services headquartered in London and Paris. After the war, Hewitt earned a B.A. in Scandinavian Studies at the Unversity of
Minnesota in 1948. With the financial support of the Carnegie Institute through a scholarship, Hewitt returned to Europe to
the University of Stockholm to study Scandinavian literature, developing a fluency in Swedish, with knowledge of Norwegian
and Danish as well. Hewitt returned to University of Minnesota to finish his M.A. and met Mary Jane Cyrus. They married in
1953 in Paris, but divorced in 1968. Hewitt attended UCLA and earned a PhD in French in 1963. He taught French language and
literature at Occidental College from 1950-1966 and at CSU Dominguez Hills from 1966-1982. While at CSUDH, Hewitt became the
founding Chairman of Foreign Languages. In 1974, he received the first CSUDH Distinguished Professor Award, and that same
year also published a book of literary criticism entitled "Through Those Living Pillars: Man and Nature in the Works of Emile
Zola". In 1982, Hewitt retired so that he could devote all his time to his art, a passion he developed early on in his life.
In 1987, Hewitt moved to Oregon, and then sometime in the early 2000s relocated again to Sedona, Arizona before succumbing
to colon cancer in 2006.
Extent
11 boxes
(five document boxes; five photograph boxes; one oversized box)
Restrictions
All requests for permission to publish or quote from manuscripts must be submitted in writing to the Director of Archives
and Special Collections. Permission for publication is given on behalf of Special Collections as the owner of the physical
materials and not intended to include or imply permission of the copyright holder, which must also be obtained.
Availability
There are no access restrictions on this collection.