Figge Art Museum Exhibits Deborah Butterfield Sculptures

Saturday, 07 April 2007 14:04

Davenport, Iowa - “Deborah Butterfield,” an exhibition of 16 “found metal” and cast bronze horse sculptures in bronze, steel and mixed media, will be on view until May 27 at the Figge Art Museum, 225 W. 2^nd St., Davenport. Butterfield transforms found metal into objects of majestic beauty and poignancy.  Her wood-into-cast bronze horses, likewise, are objects of great technical mastery and insight into one of America’s great icons.  She has been sculpting for over 30 years.  Special thanks to the Yellowstone Art Museum in Billings, Montana who organized the original version of this traveling national exhibition.

An enormously popular and significant American sculptor, Deborah Butterfield first gained wide notice at the 1979 Whitney Biennial.  Horses have been the single, sustained focus of Butterfield’s work for over 20 years.

Her early work, fragile forms created from mud, sticks and straw, as well as full-sized horses constructed of sticks and found metal, evoked horses either standing or resting on the ground.  Since the mid-1980s she has been creating full-size and smaller works from sticks and branches, and casting the finished sculpture in bronze.

The original exhibition at the Yellowstone Art Museum coincided with the publication of Deborah Butterfield, the first major academic survey of the artist’s work and career.  This beautiful hardback book is available in limited numbers at the Design Ranch, the gift shop inside the Figge Art Museum.

Deborah Butterfield is an outstanding artist and teacher of fine arts with a solid career and many honors to her credit. She received her bachelor of arts from the University of California at Davis, California, in 1972, followed by her master of fine arts there in 1973.  In 1997 she received an honorary doctorate of fine arts from Rocky Mountain College in Billings, Montana.  This honor was repeated in 1998 by Montana State University, Bozeman.

Her honors and awards are numerous, and include a National Endowment for the Arts Individual Artist Fellowship in 1977, a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship in 1980, a National Endowment for the Arts Individual Artist Fellowship, a Citation for Excellence Award from the UC Davis and Cal Aggie Alumni Association in 1992, and an American Academy of Achievement - Golden Plate Award in 1993.

Butterfield has exhibited all across the United States and in Europe.  Her work is widely collected by private individuals and museums, and she has been commissioned by a number of significant museums and public sites including the Circus World Museum, Baraboo, Wis.; the Kentucky Derby Festival of Arts, Churchill Downs, Ky.; the Urban Development Corporation of Boston for a sculpture in Copley Square; the Walker Art Center Sculpture Garden in Minneapolis; the Greenwich, Conn., Arts Council; the Portland, Oregon, International Airport; the Kansas City Zoo; and the Denver Art Museum.

Visit the Figge Art Museum at : www.figgeartmuseum.org