Lot Essay
Butler was working as an architect when the Second World War broke out. He became a conscientious objector and spent the war years working as a blacksmith and repairing farm equipment. At the end of the war he resolved to become a sculptor. Butler's early sculpture is predominantly linear in conception. In contrast, his later works, including the present sculpture, are more monumental and naturalistic. However, there is a strong relationship between these two periods.
Man and Machine appears to be directly influenced by Butler's most famous sculpture, The Unknown Political Prisoner, 1952. The latter consists of a large linear tower flanked by three smaller figures who are the "watchers." Man and Machine is similar in conception; there is a monumental central structure with one "watcher" to the side. Butler utilizes a contrast of scale to reflect man's relationship to nature. "The great tower is intended as a landscape monument...[it is] larger than it would be decent to make a figure since Freud, Galileo and Newton cut the ground from under the feet of man as a god." (ed. The J. B. Speed Art Museum, Reginald Butler, A Retrospective Exhibition, Louisville, 1963, n.p.)
Man and Machine appears to be directly influenced by Butler's most famous sculpture, The Unknown Political Prisoner, 1952. The latter consists of a large linear tower flanked by three smaller figures who are the "watchers." Man and Machine is similar in conception; there is a monumental central structure with one "watcher" to the side. Butler utilizes a contrast of scale to reflect man's relationship to nature. "The great tower is intended as a landscape monument...[it is] larger than it would be decent to make a figure since Freud, Galileo and Newton cut the ground from under the feet of man as a god." (ed. The J. B. Speed Art Museum, Reginald Butler, A Retrospective Exhibition, Louisville, 1963, n.p.)