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Mildred Anne Butler ARWS SWA UAA (1858-1941)


Mildred Anne Butler, ARWS SWA UAA (1858-1941)

The Irish watercolourist, Mildred Anne Butler, worked with a lightness of touch in order to portray scenes of nature and domesticity, which were often based both on life at her home in County Kilkenny and on her travels.

Mildred Anne Butler was born on 11 January 1858 at Kilmurry, a Georgian house near Thomastown, County Kilkenny, Ireland. She was the youngest daughter of Captain Henry Butler and, through him, the great-granddaughter of Edmund Butler, 11th Viscount Mountgarret.

Butler probably gained her interest in painting from her father, who was an amateur artist. However, she left Ireland in order to undertake formal artistic training. She seems to have studied in London at Westminster School of Art in the early 1880s, before travelling on the Continent in 1885, to visit France, Switzerland and Italy. On her return to London, she studied under Paul Naftel alongside, or on the recommendation of her friend, Rose Barton.

From the late 1880s, Butler sent works from her home at Kilmurry to exhibitions in London, including those at the Society of Women Artists (1887-1935, for much of which she was a member), the Dudley Gallery (from 1888), the Royal Academy (1889-1902), the Royal Society of Painters in Water-Colours and the New Gallery.

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