Butler, Lady (1846-1933), an English painter , was the first woman artist to succeed in military painting. Traditionally, military paintings had concentrated on the heroic deeds of officers in battle. Lady Butler won fame for portraying the experience of the common soldier. She painted gritty, realistic scenes that became immediately popular, because the British public had never before been exposed to the true nature of war in such a manner. Lady Butler painted scenes from many of the wars of the 1800’s and also from the Boer Wars (1899-1902) and World War I (1914-1918).
Elizabeth Southerden Thompson was born on Nov. 3, 1846, in Lausanne, Switzerland. She spent most of her childhood in Italy. She began receiving professional art training in 1862. Thompson’s visit to Paris following the Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871) inspired her to concentrate on military themes.
During the 1870’s, Thompson was one of England’s most successful painters. Her painting The Roll Call: Calling the Roll After an Engagement, Crimea (1874) became one of the most popular pictures of its time and was purchased by Queen Victoria . The painter’s subject is the aftermath of a hard-fought battle between the English and the Russians during the Crimean War (1853-1856). Thompson did not focus on the glories of victory. Instead, she presented a close-up look at the emotional and physical exhaustion of the soldiers as they struggled to answer roll call. Another of her popular paintings is Scotland for Ever! (1881), which shows the charge of the Royal Scottish Greys against French forces at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. The Royal Scottish Greys, commonly known as the Royal Scots Greys, was a cavalry regiment of the British Army. Thompson married the British military officer William Francis Butler in 1877. She became Lady Butler after her husband was knighted by Queen Victoria in 1886.
Lady Butler’s reputation declined in the later 1800’s and early 1900’s, when Impressionism became more fashionable than Realism. However, she regained her popularity during World War I with her patriotic scenes of British troops on horseback. Lady Butler died on Oct. 2, 1933.
