A Contemporary Art Award established in memory of Grace Butler

A Contemporary Art Award established in memory of Grace Butler, 'one of the first women [artists] who bothered about New Zealand scenery.’[1]

• In October 2017, the Grace Butler Memorial Foundation announced the establishment of a contemporary art award in memory of “plein – air” painter Grace Butler (1886 – 1962)
• The Grace Butler Memorial Foundation Award at Ara consists of a three month residency, inclusive of a grant of $20,000 and studio at Ara School of Art and Design.
• The Award is for an artist who has an association with Canterbury whose work “gives consideration to place and environment - natural and/or built.”
• The Grace Butler Memorial Foundation Award at Ara was established by the artist’s daughter, Grace Adams (1923 – 2012), and the Grace Butler Memorial Foundation.
• For more than four decades Grace Butler captured the light and colour of Canterbury, particularly the Arthur’s Pass region and New Brighton. Her paintings bridged the divide between 19^th century landscape painting and the modernity and regionalism of the 1930s.
• As a woman artist, working in the early decades of the 20^th century, Grace Butler’s paintings provided a model for the generation that followed, giving credibility to landscape as an appropriate subject for women artists.
• The selection panel for the award in 2020 are; Lecturer in Art History and Theory at the University of Canterbury, Barbara Garrie, artist Jacquelyn Greenbank, and curator at the Christchurch Art Gallery, Ken Hall.
• The Grace Butler Memorial Foundation is “honoured and excited to be supporting the work of contemporary Canterbury artists and for the legacy of Grace Butler to contribute to advancing the visual arts in New Zealand for generations to come.”
• Requests for submissions from artists for the Award are requested from 1 October to 15 December 2019 with the recipient announced in February 2020.

For further information and details:  
gracebutleraward@gmail.com

[1]  Artist Olivia Spencer Bower.  See: Julie King, 'Butler, Grace Ellen,' first published in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, vol 4, 1998.  Te Ara - the encyclopedia of New Zealand://teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/4b54/butler-grace-ellen (accessed 5 October 2017)