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David Butler Site, Patterson, LA

The Site

When an injury forced him into retirement, David Butler began animating his home and yard with cut and painted tin animals. Many of the objects that peppered his yard and home were kinetic sculptures, such as whirligigs; stationary pieces, such as a decorated bicycle covered with moving tin pieces; and window shields that took on fanciful silhouettes of animals, people, and imagined creatures. When his wife died in 1968, Butler started constructing “spirit shields,” window coverings and awnings that sheltered his house from both the hot Louisiana sun and, as he believed, unwelcome spirits.

Over the years, Butler’s dynamic home and yard installations have received national attention and acclaim, although Butler’s reaction to this attention was not always positive. Much to his disapproval, a traveling exhibition of his work was curated by William A. Fagaly in 1976; it toured Louisiana from the New Orleans Museum of Art to the Morgan City Municipal Auditorium.

The John Michael Kohler Arts Center has acquired important elements from the Butler environment with the support of Kohler Foundation, Inc.; they include three decorated window coverings from Butler’s home, a whirligig from the yard, and a decorative monkey walking stick as well as his intricately adorned bicycle.

David Butler

1898–1997

David Butler, c. 1980–1989. Photo: Richard Gasperi.

David Butler was born in Good Hope, St. Mary Parish, Louisiana, in 1898. His mother was a missionary, and his father was a carpenter. After his mother’s sudden death, Butler dropped out of school in the early 1910s to care for his seven younger siblings while his father continued to work. Butler devoted what little free time he had to drawing whatever he saw, including cane and cotton fields, people at work, shrimp boats, and trains. When his siblings were old enough to care for themselves, he moved to Patterson, Louisiana, to look for work and start a life of his own.

Butler worked a series of jobs such as cutting grass, building roads, loading lumber for shipment on railroad cars, and working a dragline. In 1962, Butler suffered a head injury on the job, was hospitalized for an extended amount time, and was forced to retire due to a permanent disability. With time on his hands, Butler began designing and constructing his domestic space, drawing from the imagery of his dreams and infusing it with his own spiritual beliefs.

Butler never considered himself an artist and didn’t attend any of the exhibitions that happened as his fame and notoriety grew. Collectors and his family members bought and sold pieces from his yard against his wishes and after his death in 1997 the site was completely dismantled.

Selected Works by David Butler

Arts Center Exhibitions

Shelter: David Butler +Leslie Umberger

May 17–September 10, 2017

Further Reading

Cooke, Lynne. Outliers and American Vanguard Art. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2018.

“David Butler: In Good Company.” In Sublime Spaces and Visionary Worlds: Built Environments of Vernacular Artists, edited by Leslie Umberger, 189-201. Sheboygan: John Michael Kohler Arts Center and Princeton Architectural Press, 2007.

Fagaly, William A. David Butler, exh. cat. New Orleans: New Orleans Museum of Art, 1976.

Livingston, Jane, and John Beardsley. “David Butler.” In Black Folk Art in America 1930-1980, 64-69. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi for the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. 1982.

Lora, Mary Elaine. “The Tin Man.” Louisiana Life 2, no. 2 (May-June 1982): 109-10.

Maresca, Frank, and Roger Ricco. “David Butler.” In American Vernacular: New Discoveries in Folk, Self-Taught, and Outsider Sculpture, 201-06. Boston: Bulfinch Press, 2002.

Patterson, Tom. “John Geldersma and David Butler.” In Pictured in My Mind: Contemporary American Self-Taught Art from the Collection of Dr. Kurt Gitter and Alice Rae Yellen. Jackson: University of Mississippi Press, 1995.

Smith, Theophus H. Conjuring Culture: Biblical Formations of Black America. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994.

Southwell Wahlman, Maude. “David Butler” In Souls Grown Deep: Once that River Starts to Flow, edited by Paul Arnett and William Arnett, 140-47. Atlanta: Tinwood Books, 2000.

Thompson, Robert Farris. Flash of the Spirit: African and Afro-American Art and Philosophy. New York: Vintage Books, 1984.

Wood, Cy. “David Butler Practices Primitive Form of Folk Art.” Daily Review (Morgan City, La.), August 31, 1973.

Additional Resources

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