THE MAKING OF A MASTERPIECE
The story of Myakka, a painting by Robert Butler All rights reserved
I don’t remember the exact date, it was late 1993 or early 1994 when Robert Butler began work on the painting now called Myakka. Robert was a night owl, he enjoyed painting at night, it was quiet and there was less chance of being interrupted. It was not unusual for him to show up at my gallery right around suppertime, set up his easel and paint till dawn. On one of those occasions he brought with him a painting, barely started, just a sketch on canvas but enough to attract my attention. Robert painted through the night, I watched, we talked. He explained that he wanted to create more than just another painting. He wanted to bring together everything he had learned and knew about the Florida landscape, about painting even about life and put them together on canvas. He was painting from the heart and calling on all the resources he had acquired over the years. You could say he was at the top of his game. I consider Myakka to be Roberts magnum opus much like Picasso’s Guernica or Duchamp’s Nude Descending a Staircase. It is the painting that defines the man and the time and place in which he lived. Those are the criteria for the making of a masterpiece. Myakka is a back country Florida landscape with deep dimension. The viewer is transported visually for miles from a dense foreground with a small creek flowing in to a vast open wetland area and then across the water to a cabbage hammock about ten miles distant. All held in place by what can only be a Florida sky.
The only thing left for me to do was to devise a way to keep the painting from leaving my gallery.
I did that with a carrot I called a due on sale clause which consisted of a contractual agreement offering to pay Robert a fee for an extended right of sale and if and when the painting was sold he would be entitled to forty percent of the sale price less any money already advanced. He liked the idea of future gain and said OK. The painting did sell, easily, and I sent Robert a check for five thousand dollars. His comment was “ I didn’t think you were serious.”
The painting was purchased by a lady from St. Petersburg, it hung in her home until her death when it was willed to her attorney who gave it to his son. I managed to keep track of it and offered to sell it for the young man who had recently acquired a wife and young son of his own. I made a number of serious attempts over the years to sell it to people who I thought should own it. The painting was pricey and not everyone shared my enthusiasm about the importance of it as related to the artist and his role in Florida’s contemporary art tradition. Finally, after years of nagging, the premier collector of Robert Butler paintings became convinced that he could no longer maintain that status unless he owned Myakka. Now he does and I don’t think he would be willing to part with it any time soon.
The story of Myakka, a painting by Robert Butler All rights reserved
I don’t remember the exact date, it was late 1993 or early 1994 when Robert Butler began work on the painting now called Myakka. Robert was a night owl, he enjoyed painting at night, it was quiet and there was less chance of being interrupted. It was not unusual for him to show up at my gallery right around suppertime, set up his easel and paint till dawn. On one of those occasions he brought with him a painting, barely started, just a sketch on canvas but enough to attract my attention. Robert painted through the night, I watched, we talked. He explained that he wanted to create more than just another painting. He wanted to bring together everything he had learned and knew about the Florida landscape, about painting even about life and put them together on canvas. He was painting from the heart and calling on all the resources he had acquired over the years. You could say he was at the top of his game. I consider Myakka to be Roberts magnum opus much like Picasso’s Guernica or Duchamp’s Nude Descending a Staircase. It is the painting that defines the man and the time and place in which he lived. Those are the criteria for the making of a masterpiece. Myakka is a back country Florida landscape with deep dimension. The viewer is transported visually for miles from a dense foreground with a small creek flowing in to a vast open wetland area and then across the water to a cabbage hammock about ten miles distant. All held in place by what can only be a Florida sky.
The only thing left for me to do was to devise a way to keep the painting from leaving my gallery.
I did that with a carrot I called a due on sale clause which consisted of a contractual agreement offering to pay Robert a fee for an extended right of sale and if and when the painting was sold he would be entitled to forty percent of the sale price less any money already advanced. He liked the idea of future gain and said OK. The painting did sell, easily, and I sent Robert a check for five thousand dollars. His comment was “ I didn’t think you were serious.”
The painting was purchased by a lady from St. Petersburg, it hung in her home until her death when it was willed to her attorney who gave it to his son. I managed to keep track of it and offered to sell it for the young man who had recently acquired a wife and young son of his own. I made a number of serious attempts over the years to sell it to people who I thought should own it. The painting was pricey and not everyone shared my enthusiasm about the importance of it as related to the artist and his role in Florida’s contemporary art tradition. Finally, after years of nagging, the premier collector of Robert Butler paintings became convinced that he could no longer maintain that status unless he owned Myakka. Now he does and I don’t think he would be willing to part with it any time soon.