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8. Mildred Anne Butler RWS (1858
- 1941)
The Gate to the Herbaceous Garden
Watercolour, 36.5 x 27cm
Signed
Mildred Anne Butler (1858-1941) studied in London with her lifelong friend Rose Barton
before they both travelled around Belgium, France, Switzerland and Italy in the mid 1880s. She
first exhibited at the Watercolour Society of Ireland in 1892 and was to show over 200 works
there over her lifetime. Her watercolours may appear quite traditional and sedate to modern
audiences, but when they were painted in the 1880s she was influenced by the French fashion for
painting ‘en plein air’, which was considered shocking at the time to the art establishments in both
England and Ireland. Her paintings such as
The Garden Cart
show her keen interest in botany and
a lightness and delicacy of touch in her favoured watercolour. Rose Barton (1856-1929) shared
an appreciation of this medium, as she herself would go on to exhibit over 100 works at the
Watercolour Society of Ireland in her career.
At the beginning of our period of study a group of six women, the best known of whom is
Fanny Currey, formed a local drawing society in Lismore, Co. Waterford and after several regional
exhibitions under various names this was eventually to become the Watercolour Society of Ireland
and from 1891 their Spring Exhibitions were to become an annual fixture on Dublin society's
calendar.
Watercolour Society of Ireland
Cont. p16
