Howard Russell Butler

Howard Russell Butler (March 3, 1856 – May 20, 1934) was an American painter and founder of the American Fine Arts Society. His early artistic training with William Shannon was complemented by visits to the National Academy of Design, where his parents were both fellows, and the studio of his uncle, William Stanley Haseltine.

Butler attended Princeton University and obtained a degree in Science in 1876 and he was invited to stay on for a year as an assistant professor of physics. From 1878 to 1879 he was doing technical illustrations in New York where he knew Thomas Edison. Whilst he was at Princeton he was an active member of the rowing team despite there being poor facilities. Butler practiced patent law until 1884 when he decided to concentrate entirely on painting.

Art and leadership Butler reapplied himself studying under Frederic Edwin Church, who was wintering in Mexico for his health, in January 1884 before returning to study with J. Carroll Beckwith and George de Forest Brush at the Art Students League in New York.

In 1889 Butler was able to find the capital to build the Fine Arts building at 215 West 57th Avenue. This building was to be the home of the Art Students League, the Society of American Artists, the Architectural League of New York and the newly formed American Fine Arts Society which Butler led for its first 17 years. Whilst raising these funds he first met Andrew Carnegie who employed him for ten years as president of the Carnegie Music Hall Company allowing him time off each day to paint. Butler married his wife Virginia Hays in 1890.

Art and Carnegie Lake In 1902 he was invited to join the Society of Artists

It was while employed by Carnegie that Butler supervised the construction of Carnegie's mansion on Fifth Avenue, which was designed by Babb, Cook, & Willard and is now the Cooper-Hewitt Museum, but he and Carnegie differed and Butler left his employ in 1905. and like the eclipse he could never keep still to allow Butler to make considered notes. His revived interest in physics led to his 1923 book Painter and Space which coincided with his second visit to a solar eclipse. He also created pictures of planets that were as seen from one of their moons. His last known eclipse visit was in 1932. Zion National Park oil on canvas painting by Howard Russell Baker, 1926.

Butler died in Princeton, New Jersey, in 1934 near the lake that he had organized for their rowing team. His work can be seen at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, American Museum of Natural History and of course Carnegie Lake.