Grace Butler

Grace Ellen Butler (née Cumming, 23 December 1886 – 23 November 1962) was a New Zealand artist.

Butler was known for her landscape paintings of New Zealand and her works are held in the collections of the Canterbury Society of Arts Gallery and Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki.

Early life and family Born Grace Ellen Cumming, in 1886, Richmond Grove, Invercargill, she was the daughter Scottish immigrants, Jane Cameron and William Forbes Cumming, a carter and contractor.

Education From around 1903 until 1907 Butler attended the Napier Technical School and studied art. She also worked at the school as a teacher. she exhibited with the Auckland Society of Arts, Otago Art Society, and The Group (1934). Butler regularly exhibited with the exhibited Canterbury Society of Arts until 1960. and the New Zealand and South Seas Exhibition, taking place in Dunedin, 1925 – 1926.

In 1916 and 1920 the Canterbury Society of Arts acquired two of her landscapes for its permanent collection. and Governor's Bay. Other notable works by Butler include Summertime, Arthur's Pass (c. 1945).

Landscape painting Butler became well known for her landscapes. The critic James Shelley praised her work saying, "No artist in New Zealand had quite the same sympathy with our alpine scenery" and fellow painter Olivia Spencer Bower saw her as, "one of the first women who bothered about New Zealand scenery." The relation of light to tone and colour were key elements in her landscapes. From the late 1920s she was increasingly influenced by the work of the impressionists and her painting style became freer and looser.