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Theodore Earl Butler
1860–1936
BirthplaceColumbus, Ohio, United States of America
Death placeGiverny, France
BiographyThe most permanent American resident of the important international artist's colony that flourished in the rural Normandy village of Giverny, France, in the decades around the turn of the twentieth century, painter Theodore Earl Butler evolved a personal, expressive style founded on the vibrant color and free brushwork of impressionism. Butler was born in Columbus, Ohio, where his father was an influential businessman. Graduating from Marietta College in Marietta, Ohio, in 1880, Butler had little interest in a business career. He took art lessons from a local painter, Albert C. Fauley (1859–1919), and in 1882 departed for New York, where he enrolled in the Art Students League, a progressive school. In the company of friend and fellow student Philip Leslie Hale, Butler sailed for Europe in 1885 in pursuit of further training.
Butler continued his studies in Paris at private studio schools, the Académie Julian, the Atelier Colarossi, and the Grande Chaumière. In 1888, he won an honorable mention for his work in the prestigious juried annual exhibition, the Paris Salon. That year, he accompanied his friend Theodore Robinson to Giverny where he met its most famous resident, French painter Claude Monet (1840–1926), a master of impressionism. Under Monet’s influence, Butler soon began to paint garden scenes and studies of figures posed outdoors in loose strokes of brightly colored paint. Butler was among the very few Americans admitted to Monet’s inner circle. In 1892, he married one of the French artist’s four stepdaughters, Suzanne Hoschedé, an event commemorated in Robinson’s The Wedding March (TF1999.127). With the births of the couple’s two children, Butler turned his attention to indoor scenes of family and friends. Following Suzanne Butler’s death in 1899, the artist moved temporarily to New York, where he painted expansive views of the city, especially the Brooklyn Bridge. Butler returned to Giverny in 1900 and married Suzanne’s sister Marthe, who had cared for the children during Suzanne’s illness and accompanied the family to America. The artist became a permanent resident of Giverny, and his home often welcomed visiting artists.
In 1897, Butler was given a solo exhibition at the gallery of Paris dealer Ambroise Vollard, a champion of such avant-garde artists’ circles as Les Nabis (“prophets”), whose paintings, often of domestic interiors, were heightened by subtle patterning and symbolic content, and later Les Fauves (“wild beasts”), so called for the strong, expressive, often eccentric color of their paintings. Butler drew on such influences to create a highly personal style characterized by swirling, free brushwork or patterned effects and imaginative color schemes. His work found considerable support and he exhibited frequently in Europe and in the United States. Beginning in 1911, he received a series of important mural commissions. Butler was in New York to work on one such project when World War I broke out. In New York, he was active among progressive art circles, exhibiting in the so-called Armory Show, a groundbreaking display of international modernist art held in 1913, and helping to found the Society of Independent Artists. Butler returned to Giverny in 1921. On his death there at the age of seventy-four, he was buried in the village cemetery adjacent to the Monet family.
Butler continued his studies in Paris at private studio schools, the Académie Julian, the Atelier Colarossi, and the Grande Chaumière. In 1888, he won an honorable mention for his work in the prestigious juried annual exhibition, the Paris Salon. That year, he accompanied his friend Theodore Robinson to Giverny where he met its most famous resident, French painter Claude Monet (1840–1926), a master of impressionism. Under Monet’s influence, Butler soon began to paint garden scenes and studies of figures posed outdoors in loose strokes of brightly colored paint. Butler was among the very few Americans admitted to Monet’s inner circle. In 1892, he married one of the French artist’s four stepdaughters, Suzanne Hoschedé, an event commemorated in Robinson’s The Wedding March (TF1999.127). With the births of the couple’s two children, Butler turned his attention to indoor scenes of family and friends. Following Suzanne Butler’s death in 1899, the artist moved temporarily to New York, where he painted expansive views of the city, especially the Brooklyn Bridge. Butler returned to Giverny in 1900 and married Suzanne’s sister Marthe, who had cared for the children during Suzanne’s illness and accompanied the family to America. The artist became a permanent resident of Giverny, and his home often welcomed visiting artists.
In 1897, Butler was given a solo exhibition at the gallery of Paris dealer Ambroise Vollard, a champion of such avant-garde artists’ circles as Les Nabis (“prophets”), whose paintings, often of domestic interiors, were heightened by subtle patterning and symbolic content, and later Les Fauves (“wild beasts”), so called for the strong, expressive, often eccentric color of their paintings. Butler drew on such influences to create a highly personal style characterized by swirling, free brushwork or patterned effects and imaginative color schemes. His work found considerable support and he exhibited frequently in Europe and in the United States. Beginning in 1911, he received a series of important mural commissions. Butler was in New York to work on one such project when World War I broke out. In New York, he was active among progressive art circles, exhibiting in the so-called Armory Show, a groundbreaking display of international modernist art held in 1913, and helping to found the Society of Independent Artists. Butler returned to Giverny in 1921. On his death there at the age of seventy-four, he was buried in the village cemetery adjacent to the Monet family.