John Davidson Butler

[source: David Martin, Martin-Zambito Fine Art]

John Davidson Butler (1890-1976) came to Seattle as a child. He graduated from Broadway High School then studied art at the University of Washington and with painter Ella Shepard Bush, founder of the Seattle Art School, before traveling east in 1910. After showing work at the American Watercolor Society exhibition in New York, he went to Paris to study at the Académie Colarossi and then on to Munich for further study.

In the summer of 1914, Butler attended a summer class in Carmel, California taught by impressionist painter William Merritt Chase. There was a solo exhibition of his work at the Seattle Fine Arts Society (now Seattle Art Museum) also that year. Butler began teaching at Cornish College of the Arts in 1916. Among his students were Thomas Handforth and Kenneth Callahan. He also offered private classes and received numerous commissions for murals in Seattle and elsewhere. As well he wrote articles and worked with arts organizations to promote art in Seattle. Butler was one of a group of progressive Seattle artists who called themselves The Triad. The other members were etcher Roi Partridge and miniaturist Clare Shepard Shisler.

After serving in the military in World War I, Butler remained in Europe where he took up printmaking. He periodically sent his prints and paintings back to Seattle for exhibition. In the 1930s, Butler returned to the United States to teach in Seattle, Minneapolis, Virginia, and Pennsylvania. He died in Silver Spring, Maryland in 1976.