Biography Theodore Earl Butler

Theodore Earl Butler, one of America’s most innovative Post-Impressionist painters, did not receive the recognition he deserved in his lifetime, since he was all but eclipsed by his famous father-in-law, Claude Monet. Born in 1861, Butler enrolled in the Art Students League in New York, then continued his studies at various art academies in Paris. He first traveled to Giverny in the summer of 1888, the village that was to become the Impressionist artists’ colony. Initially inspired by Monet, who settled there in 1883, Butler sprung from the French painter’s high-keyed palette, developing his own technique and a style that forecasts elements of the Nabi movement: simple forms, pronounced contours, and flattened spatial effects. Still tied to Impressionist subject matter, Butler applied his own vivid, energy-charged brushwork, striking color, highly saturated pigment, and boldly executed compositions that anticipate the canvases of Matisse. (Where did all this writing come from? Who wrote this bio?) The prestigious Vollard Gallery hosted a one-man show for Butler in 1897. French critics, however, classified his art as imitative of Monet, as they joined in on the anti-American sentiment of the fin de siècle. Butler then traveled to New York, where he executed his innovative and very well-received Brooklyn Bridge.