John Butts (c.1728-1764)

A landscape painter of distinction, the Irish artist John Butts specialized in river and woodland scenes. Very little biographical information is available about him, and his paintings are equally rare, giving art historians very little to go on. The London Tate Gallery boasts one Butts picture "A Mountainous Wooded Landscape", and one attributed to him - "Poachers: View in the Dargle." Due to this scarcity, his landscape painting is particularly valuable.

An Extensive River Landscape with
a Figure and Horse on a Path in
the Foreground

Butts was born in County Cork and trained by Rogers, another Irish landscape painter. In turn, he influenced other painters like George Barret Senior and James Barry, although his impact on others is known only through hearsay, as his painting activities are almost unknown. If other works by John Butts were unearthed, they might tell us more about his style of art and how perhaps it influenced other Irish landscape painters of the mid-eighteenth century.

There are no Butts pictures in the Crawford Art Gallery in Cork, or any of the municipal collections of Irish painting.

More Information About Visual Arts in Ireland

• For details of other 18th century painters, see: Irish Artists: Paintings and Biographies.
• For more about landscape painting in Ireland, see: Irish Art Guide.

• NOTE: To update John Butts' biography, click Here.