Mildred Anne Butler, RWS 1858 - 1941

Mildred Anne Butler, RWS (1858 - 1941) "Peacocks, Kilmurry" Watercolour, 4" x 7"

Irish artist, Mildred Anne Butler was born in 1858. She came from an artistic background, her father, Captain Edward Butler, being a keen watercolourist. She lived for most of her life at her family home, Kilmurry, outside Thomastown, Co. Kilkenny. The house and its gardens and grounds became her chief source of inspiration with flower pieces and landscapes with birds and animals featuring largely in her watercolours. In 1885 she visited France, Switzerland and Italy with her sketchbook. The following year she was in London and worked with fellow Irish artist, Rose Barton (1856 - 1929) under Paul Jacob Naftel (1817 -91). She studied with him for the next three years, sending her work from Kilmurry to London for him to inspect. The Dudley Gallery in London began showing her work in 1888. In 1890 she exhibited with the Watercolour Society of Ireland. Her work was included in a book of watercolours given by the Society of Lady Artists to Princess Mary, later Queen Mary on her marriage to the Duke of York. Queen Mary later bought a watercolour by the artist.

In 1894 she visited Paris and later that year she travelled with May Guinness (1863 - 1955) to Newlyn in Cornwall where she studied under the Irish painter Norman Garstin (1847 - 1926) who ran summer painting classes in Newlyn. She also returned there the following summer. It is quite likely that Garstin, who knew Degas and had written about Manet, introduced Mildred Anne Butler to the work of the Impressionists. In 1896 the purchase by the Chanterey Bequest of her painting "The Morning Bath" which she had shown at the Royal Academy was a major success and at the time a rare honour for a woman. Also that year she was made an associate of the Royal Society of Painters in Watercolours, but she had to wait forty-one years to become a full member.

As well as attending the Westminster School of Art, she also spent a term in the studio of the animal painter, William Frank Calderon (1865 - 1943). Although she rarely painted in England she exhibited there often, being one of the artists selected by Hugh Lane for his exhibition of Irish painters in the Guildhall of London Corporation in 1904. In 1907 she was included in an exhibition at the New Dudley Gallery, London with Percy French, Claude Hayes and Bingham McGuinness. She also exhibited regularly at the Royal Academy. During her career she only ever exhibited five works at the Royal Hibernian Academy, the first in 1891 and the last in 1904.
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In addition to painting in and around the family home, Kilmurry, Mildred Anne Butler also holidayed in Tramore regularly and painted there. From 1905 onwards she often travelled to France and painted in the town of Aix les Bains. She painted little in the last ten years of her life and she died on the 11th of October 1941. Her work is now housed in most major collections in Ireland and England, including the National Gallery of Ireland, the Hugh Lane Gallery, the Ulster Museum and the Tate Gallery. A major retrospective of her work was held at the Crawford Municipal Gallery in 1987.