![]() ![]() His Cippico Fountain, for Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, was awarded the society’s Otto Beit medal (1982) and his sculpture of Field Marshal Earl Alexander of Tunis, for the Wellington Barracks, London, received the society’s silver medal in 1985. In 1981, Butler was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of British Sculptors. From 1982, they lived at Valley Farm, Radway, Warwickshire, the outbuildings of which allowed for both a large studio space and a gallery of completed work. In 1975, he gave up teaching in order to concentrate full time on sculpture, and, now divorced for the third time, in the same year married Angie Berry, who would become a journalist, author and travel company co-founder. These included Monument to Freedom Fighters, which stands outside Freedom House, Lusaka, Zambia. So, he created stage sculptures for productions of the Royal Shakespeare Company at Stratford-upon-Avon, and also waxworks for Madame Tussauds.īut once he was elected to the Royal Academy, Butler received increasingly distinguished sculptural commissions. However, following his divorce, and a brief second marriage to Janet Lowe, in 1966 he married Elizabeth Nassim (who now writes novels as Liza Cody), and settled in the village of Greenfield, Bedfordshire, where he lived and worked in a Victorian former schoolhouse.Īt this stage in his career, he took on any job that he was asked to do, as was confirmed by the slogan printed on his T-shirt: “We never say no”. His success was marked, in 1964, by his election as an associate of the Royal Academy, at the age of 32.įor a while, Butler lived alongside other artists, first at the Abbey art centre, Barnet, and then at the Digswell art trust, Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire. So, in 1960, he returned there as a teacher, while also establishing himself as a sculptor in his own right. In 1956, Butler took up a scholarship at the Royal College of Art, but soon found that he lacked the freedom that he had had at the City and Guilds. The award of the Beckwith scholarship allowed him to stay at the British School at Rome for about a month, and while there he looked closely at the work of these Italian modellers and the ancient art that had inspired them. Sindall directed him to the work of the Italian sculptors in the modelling tradition – notably Giacomo Manzù, Marino Marini and Medardo Rosso – and they would prove influential in his development. While working for Giudici, Butler took evening classes under Bernard Sindall at the City and Guilds of London Art School. He was involved in carving many of the architectural sculptures of William McMillan, Charles Wheeler and James Woodford, including the latter’s Queen’s Beasts, which stand outside the Palm House at Kew Gardens (1958). Once he had completed both his national diploma and two years of national service – and had married Daisy Gutteridge, in 1955 – he returned to work for Giudici as a full-time carver. Giudici invited Butler to work as an apprentice carver under him and his brother, Raimondo. During his last term there, Butler met the stone carver Gerald Giudici, who gave the students a demonstration in the use of a pointing machine to copy plaster into stone. When Stewart moved to St Martin’s School of Art, in London, Butler was persuaded to join him, and he continued his studies under both Stewart and Walter Marsden, the head of sculpture. However, the foundation course exposed him to many artistic practices, and he soon became obsessed with sculpture, which he studied under Sydney Birnie Stewart, known as “Jock”. Having enjoyed drawing from an early age, James received encouragement from his art master at Maidstone grammar school, and at the age of 16 went to Maidstone School of Arts and Crafts to study painting. ![]() He spent most of his childhood in West Malling, Kent, in a house built by his father, which, following Walter’s death in 1942, his mother turned into a cafe. He developed a more personal vein of expression by sculpting children and ballet dancers, often based on his young daughters.īutler was born in New Cross, south-east London, the second of three children of a stevedore, Walter, and his wife, Rosina. ![]() These included a number of military memorials, and the 50-pence piece produced in 2004 to commemorate Roger Bannister’s four-minute mile. In the intervening years, Butler used his talents to create a wide range of sculptural works in a variety of materials and techniques. It stands in front of the Guard’s Chapel in Birdcage Walk, London, and was unveiled by the Queen in 1985. James Butler with his 10ft statue of Field Marshal Earl Alexander of Tunis. ![]()
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