George Butler

George Butler was born and brought up in Sheffield. He was a student at Sheffield College of Art and at the Central School in London, where his teachers included Bernard Meninsky and A S Hartrick.

In 1925, George joined the advertising agency J Walter Thompson. He worked in Berlin and New York before returning to London as Director of Art in 1932, a position he held until his retirement 30 years later.

George married Keenia Kotliarevskaya in 1933 and they had two children. Their first home was at Rossetti Studios in Flood Street, Chelsea, before moving to Hertfordshire and, after the War, to Bakewell in Derbyshire. In retirement, they had a second house near Aix-en-Provence.

Throughout his busy and successful career in advertising, George devoted every spare moment to the practice and study of art. Although he painted in Oils, he was happiest as a landscape watercolourist. He drew constantly: architecture, portrait and figure, classical studies and ballet dancers. In later years he worked in chalk and pastel.

George had his first one-man show at the Redfern Gallery in 1927. Others followed, including an exhibition in Paris in 1962. More recently, he had shows nearer to his home – in Sheffield, Derby, Bakewell and at Chatsworth House, and in Aix-en-Provence and Apt. He contributed to mixed exhibitions in Britain and France and during the 1950s and ‘60s was a regular exhibitor at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibitions. He was elected a member of the Royal Watercolour Society in 1956, and continued to show with them – and sell his work – to the end of his life. George was a member of the New English Art Club, the Royal Society of British Artists and the London Group; and in Aix-en-Provence, of the Societe des Artists Independants Aixois.

George’s grandfather, a shepherd’s son from Crowland, came to Swineshead in about 1865, where he worked for some time on the construction of the then new railway. Later, he and his family moved to a small farm on Bicker Fen. This farm became the young George’s holiday heaven. Their bible-based way of life, simple and natural, always remained with him as a standard of goodness and, to the end of his days, he continued to visit his Bicker home.

These same qualities pervade much of George’s local work, conveying the peace he found here himself and which he was able to depict for others. He always hoped that his local work would find a local home, so it is with that in mind that this exhibition has been arranged. As the pictures available span his whole life from boyhood to old age, they offer a particularly interesting record of the changing fenland scene as well as his own development as an artist. A surprising number of local homes already have a “George Butler”, but besides those, his work can be seen at the Graves Art Gallery in Sheffield and at Chatsworth and Kedleston Hall in Derbyshire, as well as in many other private collections in Britain and France.


1) Down the Fen 28x19 £155	2) Bicker Vicarage 38x28 £185	3) Quadring 35x25 £110

4) The Plum Tree 40x28 £ 175 SOLD	5) Bicker Beck 33x24 £155	6) Chatsworth 35x23 £130

7) Road to Pilsley 24x18 £100	8) Beechwood at Chatsworth 28x20 £130	9) View to the east 1 34x24 £185

10) Oak tree & red tiles 26x16 £110	11) Ash tree beside the road, Bicker Fen 28x19 £150	12) Implements at rest, Bicker Fen 35x25 £185

13) Stooks 34x18 £155	14) South Walsham 1 26x17 £185	15) South Walsham 2 35x25 £175

16) The Mill stream 23x30 £155	17) Sheep & straw stack 39x29 £130	18) Farm with dyke dredger 27x19 £130

19) Windmill & drain 34x24 £155	20) Salthouse 34x24 £175	21) The blue boat, Blakeney 36x27 £185

22) Stalham 25x18 £155	23) Saxlingham 28x22 £130	24) Sluice Bridge, Boston 39x28 £130

25) Stiffkey 35x25 £185	26) Salthouse Broad 36x26 £155	29a) Study of landscape 39x14 £165 SOLD

29b) Study of cattle 39x14 £165 SOLD	27) Cart study 30x20 £155	28) Bicker Church 1 37x24 £120