By James Archer Abbott
Often introduced at speaking engagements as “Mr. Hudson River Valley,” Joseph Thomas Butler (1932-2013) was a nationally recognized player in the evolution of art connoisseurship and historic preservation in the second half of the last century. From 1957 to 1993, he served as curator of the Rockefeller family chartered Sleepy Hollow Restorations – today’s Historic Hudson Valley. (With his characteristically wicked chuckle, he often recalled being beckoned to Manhattan for a personal interview with John D. Rockefeller, Jr. He saw this as his “royal summons.”) Winterthur-trained, Joe was among the first decorative arts scholars to move beyond the eighteenth century and its highly coveted realm of the ball-and-claw foot to the many riches of the 19th century and its eclectic revivals. (This apparently represented a life-long passion, with Joe’s earliest childhood fascination being ‘Victorian’ beadwork purses, pillows, and upholstery.) As Sleepy Hollow’s curator – and emphasizing Joe’s longevity in position, he oversaw two separate restorations of Washington Irving’s Sunnyside, two reconstructions of nearby Philipsburg Manor, acquisitions and openings of Van Cortlandt Manor and Montgomery Place, and experiments in regionally important changing exhibitions through a brief partnership with Federal Hall in Manhattan. The time span for collections he oversaw ranged from 1700 to 1985. The many books and articles he wrote in celebration of same total well in the double digits.
Joe Butler’s easy manner and accessibility as a curator, writer, and professor defined him as irreplaceable. When good friend Edgar Kaufmann, Jr., was planning the opening of his family’s Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Fallingwater, Joe’s guidance was sought; he called for the prominent inclusion of full liquor bottles, contemporary magazines, and other hospitable touches remembered from when he had been an actual guest, so that the sightseer could experience that modernist icon as if a personal invitee of the Kaufmanns. (With Edgar and his partner, designer Paul Mayen, Joe enjoyed decades of unique travel , beginning with an often remembered 1963 pilgrimage to the studio of aging artist Maxfield Parrish.) Joe served as the American editor of The Connoisseur magazine, an advisory editor of Art & Antiques magazine, as well as a contributor to the Encyclopedia Britannica. As an educator, he was for many years Adjunct Associate Professor of Architecture at Columbia University, and later counted among the faculty of the Masters in Museum Studies Program of the Fashion Institute of Technology. Today, when attending an opening of an exhibition, an antiques show, or a lecture it never fails for me to come across at least one fellow student of Joe’s. His interest in and generosity toward the “next” generation were great. Indeed, his vast reach as teacher-mentor serves as his finest legacy.
For Joe, collecting was a means of his “continuing education.” He was a voracious reader and the ever-inquisitive appreciator of beauty and uniqueness. His “autobiography” was his multi-layered Tarrytown apartment, with each object representing a personal curiosity. The whole was astoundingly rich and complex. One and all who accepted his coveted cocktail invitations (there was never food!) left knowing something new and feeling inspired in some unexpected way. It is with such in mind that it seems only fitting and right to “release” his collection for others to study, celebrate, and enjoy.
James Archer Abbott
Director, Evergreen Museum & Library
Johns Hopkins University