Clyde Butcher’s “American Everglades” Exhibit Evokes The Beauty Surrounding Us. Arts Council Of Martin County Honors This Photographic Visionary Now Through March 13.
One of the country’s most honored photographers, Clyde Butcher, is being featured at the Court House Cultural Center NOW through March 13. His “America’s Everglades Exhibit”, presented by the Arts Council of Martin County, is a tribute to its 30 years of sharing art in the gallery and as a special tribute to Ansel Adams, who was featured in that first show. The rugged and remote beauty of the Everglades is captured in these works which span more than three decades of foraging into dense swampland. The Rickie Report shares the details and some sneak peeks.
THURSDAY, JANUARY 21, 2021
5:30 – 7 PM
Virtual Meet & Greet with Clyde Butcher:
Thursday, February 11, 2021
2 PM
Zoom Registration required: www.MartinArts.org
Exhibit runs NOW through March 13, 2021
A donation of $5 is requested to support our exhibits and programs
Court House Cultural Center
80 SE Ocean Blvd., Stuart, FL
Gallery Hours:
Tuesday 10 am – 6 pm, Wednesday – Saturday 10 am – 4 pm
Covid-19 Safety guidelines are in place
A maximum of 20 people will be allowed in the gallery at one time. Visitors, staff, and vendors must wear face coverings/masks while indoors. Disposable face masks will be available. A 6-foot distance from others must be maintained.Hand sanitizer is available and frequently touched surfaces will be cleaned by staff throughout the day.
Clyde Butcher at Fakahatchee
The rugged and remote beauty of the Everglades is captured in these works which span over three decades of foraging into dense swampland. Delicate ecosystems, rare botanical specimens, and sweeping landscapes bring the wonder of this mysterious part of our country to light. The scale, extraordinary clarity and tonal range set his photographs apart as exceptional works of art, earning him recognition as the foremost landscape photographer in America today.
Close up of Clyde Butcher’s camera and a sample of the Exhibition
This expansive wilderness collection represents the many years Butcher spent exploring the remote regions of the Everglades, experiencing its changes. Shaped and sustained by seasonally flowing shallow water, the area is home to dozens of threatened and endangered species, massive flocks of wading birds, recovering populations of alligators, crocodiles, and millions of insects.
FOLLOWING IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF ANSEL ADAMS
Clyde says, “Out west they have their mountains. We have our clouds.”
On January 13, 1991 the Court House Cultural Center welcomed a collection of Ansel Adams photographs loaned by the Mitsubishi Estate Collection. To honor that landmark of 30 years ago, the Gallery Committee of the Court House Cultural Center invited revered Florida black and white landscape photographer, Clyde Butcher, to exhibit at the Center.
Maria Miele remembers dragging her father to see that exhibit 30 years ago and how impressed she was at the prospect of such a renowned photographer on display in this small town. She tells The Rickie Report, “As an Arts Council Board and Gallery Committee member, I am so proud to have helped to bring this Clyde Butcher exhibition to Stuart. It is a feeling of pride and personally, as an artist/photographer myself and as an art educator having taught many of our youth about Clyde’s contributions to the arts, it is so satisfying and most exciting! Clyde, known sometimes as “The Ansel Adams of the South”, has personal connection with our beautiful and fragile Florida ecosystems and waterways. I would encourage everyone to see the exhibit and drag their family and friends. This will be one for the record books.”
A Legendary Photographer and National Treasure
“Blowing Rocks” by Clyde Butcher
The scale and extraordinary clarity of his work sets it apart as exceptional. In the tradition of the nineteenth-century Hudson River School painters, Clyde composes his works at pristine and untarnished locations across the United States, creating arresting compositions that distinctly mark him as the foremost landscape photographer in America today.
Clyde has been called the next Ansel Adams by Popular Photography magazine, awarded as a humanitarian for acting for the betterment of his community, and recognized as a conservationist for bringing issues to the forefront of public consciousness through his art. His photography transcends political boundaries, challenging us to work together to protect natural places across the globe.
Butcher’s journey began with a humble origin, born in Kansas City, MO. in 1942, the only child to a sheet-metal worker. As a child, he spent most of his Ume drawing boat designs and crafting ship prototypes from scrap metal. Butcher graduated with a degree in architecture from California Polytechnic State University. It was then that he discovered his inability to draw architectural designs. To rectify this he taught himself photography, enabling him to photograph (rather than draw) his architectural models for presentations. Unable to afford a store-bought camera, he made himself a crude, but dependable pinhole camera.
Niki Vogel and Clyde married in 1963. He saw an Ansel Adams Photography exhibit at Yosemite National Park, and was so impressed by Adams’ work that he began to photograph landscapes in black and white. Clyde left the architecture field in 1970 and began exhibiting his black and white photographs at art festivals.
In 1971 Clyde established his second business, Eye Encounter, Inc., and began selling his photographs as wall decor to department stores such as Montgomery Wards, J.C. Penny’s, and Sears. To enhance sales, he began to use color film, and also a 5ʺx7ʺ view camera. In addition to photographing landscapes in California, he also began to take pictures in Oregon, Washington, Wyoming, Ohio, and Hawaii. Eye Encounter became a multi-million-dollar business, employing more than 200 workers. Due to the stress of the business Clyde sold it in 1977. To regroup, he built a sailboat and trailered it across the country to Florida.
Clyde says, “I’d take a gator over a tick any day”
Clyde moved with his family to Ft. Lauderdale, FL and soon moved to Ft. Myers for a slower pace of life. Clyde began selling his color photographs of the American West at Florida art festivals. After briefly looking around Florida and not seeing anything to photograph, he began producing manipulated photographs with an outer-space theme.
In 1983 Clyde began photographing Florida beaches, still using color film. It wasn’t until a visit to Tom Gaskin’s Cypress Knee Museum in 1984, a roadside attraction in central Florida, that Clyde was introduced to a new side of Florida. He says, “After strolling on the boardwalk through a primeval cypress swamp, a whole new world was opened up for me”. Oscar Thompson, a Florida native, introduced Clyde to the “interior” of the Big Cypress National Preserve and the Everglades by taking Clyde on his first walk in to the swamp. After his immersion into the beauty he found so mysterious and primeval, Clyde was then inspired to take black and white photographs of the swamp.
Clyde Butcher says,”I hope that through my images people can see themselves in this beautiful ecosystem and understand it is worth saving.”
In 1986, after his 17 year old son Ted was killed by a drunk driver, Clyde found solace in the wilderness of the Big Cypress National Preserve, where the mysterious, spiritual experience of being close to nature helped to restore his soul. Resolving to relinquish his use of color photography, he destroyed his color work and vowed to use only black and white film. He purchased an 8ʺx10ʺ view camera and enlarger.
Although Butcher will always be identified with the Everglades, he is deeply committed to recording precious landscapes throughout the world. The beauty and importance of Butcher’s photography quickly earned him widespread recognition resulting in museum exhibits in the United States, an exhibit at the National Gallery of Art in Prague celebrating the new millennium, and a request by the United Nations to photograph the mountains of Cuba to celebrate The Year of the Mountains.
Butcher has completed six Public broadcasting programs on the environment of Florida, three of them award-winning documentaries. Much of his work can be seen in his numerous books including; America the beautiful, a table top collection of his work from across the United States, Big Cypress Swamp – The Western Everglades, Second edition, which features images from the Big Cypress Swamp where he and Niki made a home for 16 years, and celebrating America’s National Parks, Preserves, Monuments, recreation Areas. Dedicated to the employees of the National Parks, this book showcases Clyde’s stunning black and white photographs of parks ranging from the mountains of Montana to the swamps in the Everglades.
Clyde Butcher Exhibit Sneak Peek
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The mission of the Arts Council is to inspire participation in and a passion for the arts in our community. It serves as the local arts agency in Martin County.
For more information, visit www.martinarts.org
