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Grace Butler

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TitleGrace ButlerDescriptionGrace Butler was a plein air artist who famously captured the dramatic alpine landscape of Arthur’s Pass. Her connection with the area began in 1916 when she travelled through the gorge by coach. Every summer thereafter, Grace and her husband Guy would camp opposite a roadman's cabin nestled in the native bush. In 1923 the couple bought the cabin and named it after Jack O'Kane, the last roadman to reside there. The door to Jack's Hut was always open. Visitors over the years included writer Ngaio Marsh, painter Margaret Stoddart, writers Alan Mulgan and Mona Tracy, entomologist Stan Oliver and botanist Leonard Cockayne.

Grace was a keen naturalist with an intimate knowledge of the region and its distinctive vegetation. To capture her alpine surroundings on canvas, Grace would tramp to remote areas with a backpack full of painting gear. Art reviewer Leonard Booth said her work reflected her commitment to nature: 'She dwells in the mountains, knows the spirit that swells in the mountains.' Her work was based on close observation, yet her early paintings express a romantic response to nature. She once described her artistic aims as 'an attempt to capture something loved intensely; a response to piled-up clouds, or soft mist breaking the contour of rugged hills…there's an inner vision you yearn to express.'

Butler's paintings bridged the divide between 19th century landscape painting and modernism in the 1930s. As a woman artist, working in the early decades of the 20th century, her paintings provided a model for the generation that followed, giving credibility to landscape as an appropriate subject for women artists.

Grace's legacy lives on in The Grace Butler Memorial Foundation Award, established by the artist’s daughter, Grace Adams (1923 – 2012), and the Grace Butler Memorial Foundation. The award is a biennial three month residency, and offers artists closely associated with Waitaha Canterbury a substantial grant and studio at Ara School of Art and Design.

First NameGraceMiddle NameEllenLast NameButlerDate of Birth1886Date of Death1962

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Artist Grace Butler painting at Arthur's Pass.

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CollectionArtists and our landscapePlaceArthur's PassImageJack's HutSummertime, Arthur's PassMore InformationGrace Butler Memorial Foundation AwardTe Ara biography

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Grace Butler