James Butterwick

James Butterwick (born 9 September 1962) is a British art dealer, collector, and expert in the field of Ukrainian and Russian art from 1880 to 1930.

Biography From an influential English family associated with the arts, Butterwick's grandfather, Cyril, a former classics master at Eton College, was a renowned English silver specialist and Director of Sotheby's with a collection of paintings, books and works of art. Butterwick's godfather, Peregrine Pollen, with whom he enjoyed a close relationship, was the President of Sotheby's in New York and also had a large collection. James' parents kept him interested in art and financed his first acquisition in 1985, a work on paper by Léon Bakst.

Between 1976 and 1980, Butterwick studied at Eton College, then at the Faculty of Arts, University of East Anglia, Norwich. Between 1982 and 1986 he studied Russian and History of Art at the University of Bristol, graduating with a 2.1 honours degree. It was whilst a student at the University of Bristol that he became interested in Russian literature and culture.

In 1985 Butterwick spent a six-month study internship in Minsk and Pyatigorsk, in the former USSR, after which he decided to concentrate exclusively on Russian Art. According to his recollections: "In 1985, I first went to the Soviet Union - to Minsk, went to the local museum and saw a lot of magnificent paintings by artists utterly unknown in the West. Then it occurred to me that, as no-one in the West knew of this art, it would make sense to, upon returning to Britain, get involved in Russian Art of the XIX - early XX century."

In 1994 he moved to Moscow. As he recalled: "Outside of Russia, there were few works of this period, so I moved to Moscow, I drove my car from London and worked in this market as a dealer. It was an incredibly interesting time and utterly crazy. Presidents of corporations and banks bought from me, I started to make a name for myself, lectured, made friends with old and new collectors and immersed myself in this new world. In the 1990s, Russia was a free country, possibly the freest in the world and, at least at that time, rather less hypocritical than Britain but the law in England is better respected, I had a great job offer and I chose to return there." In recent years, Butterwick has become a collector of Soviet nonconformist work of the second half of the 20th century and British watercolours of the 18th and 20th century and Old Master drawings.

A member of the Russian Society of Private Collectors since 1994,

In 2013, he accused the organisers of the exhibition "Avanguardie russe dal Cubofuturismo al Suprematismo", held in Mantua, of showing forgeries. The organisers subsequently sued him for libel and, in February 2020, an Italian court exonerated him and ruled that Butterwick's opinion was based on his “proven and recognized competence and experience,” which, “although harshly stated,” “was never offensive.

In 2018, he was among the leading experts on the Russian avant-garde who signed a letter about the dubious authenticity of works from the collection of Igor Toporovsky, exhibited in Ghent. As a result, the exhibition was closed down and became subject to a police investigation.

In July 2020, after his appeal, an auction in South Carolina of 49 works by Natalia Goncharova" was cancelled.