Bob Willcutt

Bob Willcutt has always had an interest in fine art, especially photography. Being the photo editor of his high school paper taught him film techniques and developmental editing. He moved to Kentucky in 1966 to attend the University of Kentucky earning a BA and MSW. Although he did photography, his main focus was on scholastic and musical pursuits.When he started his own business in 1968 and expanded in 1979, naming it Willcutt Guitars, he was attracted to the art as well as the musical aspect of guitars. In 1998 he created the website WillcuttGuitars.com and built it around high quality photographs of the world's most beautiful instruments.

Bob has published Feathers of Fayette; Wild Birds of Lexington, Kentucky in 2018, Henry Clay's Ashland, A Pictorial Tribute to one of America's Greatest Statesmen and his Lexington Estate in 2019. The Musical Instrument Collector, originally published in 1977, and reprinted in 1978 and 2020, And Waveland's Treasures in 2021 which was awarded the Kentucky Historical Society's Private Press Award and the Bluegrass Trust's Clay Lancaster Heritage Education Award.

His award winning photographs have been published in American Art, Smithsonian American Art museum, American Spirit, The Herald Leader, Tops in Lexington, The Southsider, Chevy Chaser, Jessamine Journal, Kentucky Living, and others.

Robert Willcutt is one of the few serious instrument collectors in Lexington, the heart of the Bluegrass region. For an area famous for its horses, its bourbon, and its music to be so short on guitar collectors is almost beyond belief, but it is true, and it does mark Willcutt as an unusual person. As well as being a collector, he is a repairman and restorer with an exceptionally high code of ethics which he actively urges that others heed, and he is a blues rock player performing with area bands.