Reg Butler
Girl with a Surfboard, 1948
Bronze with dark brown patina
Height: 13 in / 33 cm
Stamped with a monogram and numbered '2' on the base; signed again with monogram and dated '48' on the back.
Cast in an edition of 4.
This work is recorded by the artist as RB23.
Cast in an edition of 4.
This work is recorded by the artist as RB23.
Reginald Cotterell Butler was an English sculptor. He was born at Bridgefoot House, Buntingford, Hertfordshire to Frederick William Butler (relative of William Butler Yeats) and Edith (daughter of blacksmith William...
Reginald Cotterell Butler was an English sculptor. He was born at Bridgefoot House, Buntingford, Hertfordshire to Frederick William Butler (relative of William Butler Yeats) and Edith (daughter of blacksmith William Barltrop of The Forge, Takeley, Essex). His parents were Master and Matron of the Buntingford Union Workhouse.
Butler studied and lectured at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London from 1937 to 1939. He worked for some time as a blacksmith and his early open-work sculptures in wrought iron indeed reflect this. He was a conscientious objector during the Second World War, having been exempted from military service conditional upon setting up a small blacksmith business repairing farm implements.
His first one-man exhibition was held in London in 1949, and in 1952 and 1954 he exhibited at the prestigious Venice Biennale. After winning the ‘Unknown Political Prisoner’ competition in 1953 he became one of the best-known sculptors during the 1950s and 1960s. Butler’s work in shell bronze from the mid-1950s shows an increasing concern with volume and texture. His continued preoccupation with line, however, lends the naturalistic nudes of this period a distinctive tension. After 1960, rejecting a set personal idiom, he sculpted abstract towers, nudes influenced by African primitive art, and realistic erotic nude paintings. Concurrently throughout this period he taught at the Slade School of Art.
Butler’s later work consists of lifelike models of female figures, such as Girl on a Round Base, that seem to have something in common with Hans Bellmer and the sculpture of Allen Jones and prefigure the work of Ron Mueck.
Many of his works are held by the Museum of Modern Art in New York and Tate Gallery in London.
Butler was featured in the 1964 documentary film ‘5 British Sculptors (Work and Talk)’ by American filmmaker Warren Forma.
Butler studied and lectured at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London from 1937 to 1939. He worked for some time as a blacksmith and his early open-work sculptures in wrought iron indeed reflect this. He was a conscientious objector during the Second World War, having been exempted from military service conditional upon setting up a small blacksmith business repairing farm implements.
His first one-man exhibition was held in London in 1949, and in 1952 and 1954 he exhibited at the prestigious Venice Biennale. After winning the ‘Unknown Political Prisoner’ competition in 1953 he became one of the best-known sculptors during the 1950s and 1960s. Butler’s work in shell bronze from the mid-1950s shows an increasing concern with volume and texture. His continued preoccupation with line, however, lends the naturalistic nudes of this period a distinctive tension. After 1960, rejecting a set personal idiom, he sculpted abstract towers, nudes influenced by African primitive art, and realistic erotic nude paintings. Concurrently throughout this period he taught at the Slade School of Art.
Butler’s later work consists of lifelike models of female figures, such as Girl on a Round Base, that seem to have something in common with Hans Bellmer and the sculpture of Allen Jones and prefigure the work of Ron Mueck.
Many of his works are held by the Museum of Modern Art in New York and Tate Gallery in London.
Butler was featured in the 1964 documentary film ‘5 British Sculptors (Work and Talk)’ by American filmmaker Warren Forma.
Provenance
Private collection, US;Purchased from above by present owner.
Exhibitions
London, Hanover Gallery, Reg Butler, April - June 1954, no. 2, another cast exhibited.
New York, Curt Valentin, Reg Butler, September - November 1955, no. 2, another cast exhibited.
Louisville, J.B. Speed Museum, Reg Butler: A Retrospective Exhibition, October - December 1963, no. 1, another cast exhibited.
London, Tate Gallery, Reg Butler, November 1983 - January 1984, no. 8, another cast exhibited.
London, Gimpel Fils, Reg Butler: Museé Imaginaire: Bronze Middle and Later Period, September - October 1986, no. 3, another cast exhibited.
Literature:
M. Garlake, The Sculpture of Reg Butler, Much Hadham, 2006, p. 114, no. 23, another cast illustrated.