Linda Butler, American b. 1947, Spiral Staircase I

Lot description

Linda Butler American, b. 1947 Spiral Staircase I 1982 gelatin silverprint 15 x 12 inches unsigned Provenance: James T. Parker Art Trust Collection, Chicago, IL REF: www.westongallery.com. (this image is shown) Mostly self-taught as a photographer, Butler, who was born in Appleton, Wisconsin, and went to Antioch College and the University of Michigan, reacted strongly to what she learned in a workshop led by famed photographer of Western vistas Ansel Adams. Many of her Asian views—rooftops in a seacoast village, vistas of melting snow in Yamagata—recall Adams; however, in Rural Japan: Radiance of the Ordinary, Butler counterbalances such long exposures with genre scenes, as well as exquisitely nuanced, cropped views of seemingly mundane subjects like antique money and drying squid. The play of shadows is once again critical to her compositions, now taken with a 4 x 5 view camera. That she came to know this area and its inhabitants intimately is evident in every image. “Out of nothingness,” she says, quoting ancient folklore, “something is born”; her Japanese works echo the Shaker pictures in proving this aphorism.