GEORGE EDMUND BUTLER
Southampton 1872 – 1936 Twickenham
Though Butler’s parents emigrated to New Zealand in 1883
and Butler grew up and had his first art training in Wellington,
most of his subsequent years, from the age of twenty-six,
were spent in England.
He returned to Europe in 1898, working his passage as a stoker
to save money for his studies.
In the next couple of years he attended the Lambeth School of Art
in London; the Académie Julian in Paris; and the Academy Antwerp.
Except for a five-year return visit to New Zealand with his young
English wife, 1900-1905, Butler settled permanently in England;
he and his wife making their home in Bristol.
Butler taught at Clifton College.
He was elected to the
Royal West of England Academy in 1912 and successfully exhibited
oils and watercolours, both portraits and landscapes.
Though not known as a printmaker, he was obviously moved to try
monotype, as this interesting little print from c1911 witnesses.
Monotype is the most painterly of all printing techniques, the ink
manipulated directly on the surface of the plate and able to be printed
by hand pressure, thus not necessarily requiring specialist printmaking
equipment.
In 1918 Butler would be commissioned by the New Zealand
Expeditionary Force as an official war artist, and was sent to France
to join the New Zealand Division, observing and sketching military
operations in the last month of the First World War and after the
Armistice sketching the various battlefield sites where New Zealanders
had fought.
The Scyther
106 x 81 mm
Monochrome brown monotype, c1911.
The matrix initialled.
Signed in pencil and annotated A Monotype.
On wove, front-mounted, presumably by the artist,
the dark brown mount being signed and dated 1911 in pencil
and dedicated with a New Year greeting to Mr & Mrs Simeon (?)
Some skinning on the reverse. Slight foxing.
£250
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