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HOWARD RUSSELL BUTLER (American, 1856-1934) Church of Santa Anna in Mexico, 1885 Oil on canvas 22 x 36 inches (55.9 x 91.4 cm) Signed lower right: H. R. Butler Inscribed with title on a card and signed by the artist's son preserved on reverse THE JEAN AND GRAHAM DEVOE WILLIFORD CHARITABLE TRUST PROVENANCE: Christie's, New York, Fine American Paintings, Drawings, and Sculpture, Sept. 15, 2005, lot 19 (label verso). This marvelous Mexican landscape documents an important turning point in the career of Howard Russell Butler, who began life as a lawyer but whose love of the American West led him to switch careers and become a successful landscapist and painter of solar eclipses, as well as the first president and founder of the American Fine Arts Society. Born in New York City, he studied at Princeton and Columbia Universities. In 1877, upon completing his degree from Princeton, his father gave him a graduation gift of a train trip West to California. He and three classmates went on the adventure, which included an excursion to Yosemite where they visited with John Muir. From this time, Butler had an ongoing fascination with the West. In 1882, he graduated from law school at Columbia and practiced in New York City, but was unhappy with that career and started thinking about developing his painting talents professionally. In 1884, he and artist Frederick E. Church went to Mexico where they opened a studio together. There, he produced this remarkable scene of church with a large group of townspeople clustered around a public well nearby. The trip to Mexico cemented his decision to become a professional painter. He subsequently studied at the Art Students League, and also in Paris where he became active in the American artist colony. Focusing primarily on color and light, he painted in the French countryside in a loose, impressionistic style, and one of his painting companions was John Singer Sargent. By 1886, he was receiving honorable mention at the Paris Salon.