Sheila Butler

Sheila Butler (born 1938) is an American-Canadian visual artist and retired professor, now based in Winnipeg, Manitoba. She is a founding member of Mentoring Artists for Women's Art in Winnipeg, Manitoba and the Sanavik Inuit Cooperative in Baker Lake, Nunavut. She is a fellow of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts.

Career and education Butler was born in Leesport, Pennsylvania. She obtained a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree with honors from Carnegie Mellon University (formerly the Carnegie Institute of Technology) in Pittsburgh in 1960. served as a special projects officer for the Northwest Territories, where they engaged and supported Inuit artists. They initiated a printmaking project, sewing projects and a shop. When the Butlers first arrived, they faced staunch skepticism about their programs. The local clothing factory had recently closed and many of the established printmakers had left. who mission was to "foster and coordinate the art activities in the settlement, and to be able to contract for other community services." Examples of such work are Bedroom (1982) and The National and the Journal (1984). Gary Michael Dault from The Globe and Mail said, "drawing has always been a central fact of her [Butler] existence as an artist (her wispy, sprawling drawing installation, The Essential Tremor, a sort of enterable dream journal, is one of the strongest works in the show)." Further, Dault described Butler as a "veteran artist" and "a brilliant (and inexplicably undervalued) painter". Butler explored themes of violence and fear in her collection The National and the Journal along with other artists including Eleanor Bond, Wanda Koop, Eva Stubbs and Diana Thorneycroft.

Between 2004 and 2007, Sheila Butler, along with northern-Canadian writer Ruby Arngna'naaq, artist William Noah, southern-Canadian visual artist Patrick Mahon, and Jack Butler, formed the Art and Cold Cash Collective, a five-person artists' collective. The exhibition called Art and Cold Cash toured to Canadian art galleries and Arctic settlements, as well as the University of Edinburgh and the Toronto Pearson International Airport.

In 1983, Plug-In-Art (now Plug-In ICA) created an exploratory committee of women to find ways in which to integrate and promote female artists in Winnipeg. Mentoring Artists for Women's Art was founded based upon the recommendations of the committee, with Butler as a founding member.

A retrospective exhibition co-curated by Pamela Edmonds and Patrick Mahon, entitled Sheila Butler: Other Circumstances, was held in Winnipeg in 2024, and in London, Ontario in 2021.

Her work is in such public collections as the National Gallery of Canada, the Art Gallery of Hamilton, the University of Toronto, the Winnipeg Art Gallery and University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, as well as the Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Oshawa.

Books and published work Butler, Sheila; Winnipeg Art Gallery. Sheila Butler, Recent Paintings: the Winnipeg Art Gallery March 15 to April 26, 1981. Winnipeg, MB: Winnipeg Art Gallery, 1981. Print. . Engelstad, Bernadette; Butler, Sheila; Driscoll, Bernadette; Winnipeg Art Gallery. Baker Lake prints & print-drawings, 1970–76: Feb. 27–April 17, 1983, the Winnipeg Art Gallery. Winnipeg, MB: Winnipeg Art Gallery, 1982. Print. Moppett, George; Butler, Sheila. Sheila Butler, paintings 1986. Saskatoon, SK: Mendel Art Gallery, 1986. Print. Butler, Sheila; Whitehouse, Diane. Diane Whitehouse, paintings, rooms and other walled places. Winnipeg, MB: University of Manitoba, 1986. Print. . Butler, Sheila; Wight, Darlene. The first passionate collector: the Ian Lindsay collection of Inuit art. Winnipeg, MB: Winnipeg Art Gallery, 1991. Print. Burke, Rebecca; Butler, Sheila. In Search of Medusa. Sackville, NB: The Owens Art Gallery, 1996. Print. Butler, Sheila; Fischer, Barbara; Patten, James. Sheila Butler: Matters of Life and Death. London, ON: London Regional Art and Historical Museums, 1997. Print. Feheley Fine Arts. The Butler Collection: early Baker Lake drawings. Toronto, ON: Feheley Fine Arts, 1999. Print. Butler, Sheila; Reid, Stuart; Parkins, Ilya. Sheila Butler: Sympathetic Magic. Mississauga, ON: Mississauga Art Gallery, 2000. Print. Butler, Sheila. Nursery Rhymes. Winnipeg, MB: University of Winnipeg, 2000. Print. .