HOWARD RUSSELL BUTLER PAINTINGS FOR SALE & BIOGRAPHY

HOWARD RUSSELL BUTLER

American, 1856-1934

BIOGRAPHY
Howard Russell Butler was born in New York, the grandson of Charles H. Marshall, owner of the Black Ball Packet Line. He first studied drawing in Yonkers, New York, at the age of fourteen. In 1876, he graduated from Princeton, where he continued as a special student of Cyrus F. Bracket, professor of physics, and accompanied the Princeton Scientific Expedition to the Rocky Mountains in 1877. “For the next five years, Butler was involved in several businesses, including the Gold and Stock Telegraph Company and the American Speaking Telephone Company. Receiving a law degree from Columbia University in 1882, he went on to practice electrical patent law with the firm of Pope, Edgecomb and Butler.

“In spite of many business commitments, Butler found time to paint, and, in 1884, at the age of twenty-eight, he resolved to pursue his artistic career more seriously. Resigning his law partnership, he began art studies in Mexico under the landscape painter Frederic Church, and later in New York, he enrolled at the Art Students League. Convinced that he would benefit from foreign study, Butler sailed for Europe in May 1885, but during the two years he spent abroad, his studies were fragmentary and sporadic… After a month of drawing at the Atelier Colarossi under Raphael Collin and Gustave Courtois, he spent the summer with Alexander Harrison at Concarneau in Brittany, doing plein-air scenes. There he made sketches for The Seaweed Gatherers, 1886 [Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC], which won an honorable mention at the Paris Salon in the spring. After a trip to Italy in the winter of 1885-1886, Butler resumed his studies in Paris, this time under the figure painter Alfred Philippe Roll, and, early in 1887, he studied briefly with Henri Gervex. He continued to paint outdoors, working in the French and Dutch countryside, and at St. Ives, the artists' colony in Cornwall, England.

“Butler returned to the United States in 1887, and, after another trip to Mexico, settled in New York. In 1888 he became a member of the Society of American Artists, and the following year he was elected to the Architectural League of New York. Elected an associate of the National Academy of Design in 1897 and a full member three years later, he served as its president between 1916 and 1921. Always interested in promoting cooperation among the city's art organizations, he helped establish the American Fine Arts Society, founded in 1889, and served as its head until 1905. Later, he was among those who organized the National Academy Association, which attempted to secure more exhibition space and permanent headquarters for a variety of art organizations.

“At the turn of the century, many of the artist's business activities stemmed from his friendship with the industrialist Andrew Carnegie, whose portrait he painted at least seventeen times. Butler was president of the Carnegie Music Hall Company from 1898 to 1901 and supervised the building of Carnegie's New York residence (now the Cooper-Hewitt Museum). During the early years of the century, he directed the construction of Carnegie Lake in Princeton, and, after 1911, he lived in this New Jersey town. Butler's summer home, where he often painted, was for many years in East Hampton, Long Island. From 1905 to 1907, and again from 1921 until 1926, he lived in California.
“Although he painted portraits and figure studies, Butler preferred marines and also made a specialty of astronomical pictures depicting solar and lunar phenomena, a subject which combined his artistic and scientific interests… In recognition of these achievements Butler was elected a member of the American Astronomical Societ. He continued to paint until his death in Princeton at the age of seventy-eight.”

[Doreen Bolger Burke, American Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1980, vol. III, pp. 283-5]

Museum & Public Collections:

American Museum of Natural History, New York, NY
Andrew Carnegie Birthplace Museum, Dunfermline, Scotland
Art Students League of New York, NY
Cleveland Public Library, Cleveland, OH
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
National Arts Club, New York, NY
Princeton University Art Museum, Princeton, NJ
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC
Tucson Museum of Art, Tucson, AZ
Zion National Park, UT

Mark Murray Fine Paintings is a New York gallery specializing in buying and selling 19th century and early 20th century artwork.

Please contact us if you are interested in selling your Howard Russell Butler paintings or other artwork from the 19th century and early 20th century.