Mary Butts - Danny Israel Art

A Candle For Mary Butts

We dedicated our recent exhibition - Sanctuary - at Parallax Art Fair, to the flame-haired early feminist and novelist Mary Franeis Butts (1890 – 1937). Thought by many to be the equal of TS Eliot, James Joyce and DH Lawrence, she is currently being rediscovered by a new generation of readers. She was also, fortuitously, my grandmother. If Mary found sanctuary in her writing, in long days at her desk in Rue de Montessuy, in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower, then she also found sanctuary in long nights among the the refugees, writers, emigrés and artistes of the salons, restaurants, cafés and nightclubs of Montparnasse, Montmartre, Le Marais, and Paris St. Germain. Perhaps she finally found sanctuary in her isolated fisherman’s cottage, Tebel Vos, at the furthermost reach of the Cornish peninsula.

A fully paid-up member of the Lost Generation she was variously friend, associate, acquaintance and confidante to Jean Cocteau, André Breton, Aleister Crowley, Gertrude Stein, Man Ray, Josephine Baker, TS Eliot, Peggy Guggenheim, Evelyn Waugh, Wyndham Lewis, Roger Fry, Ezra Pound, John Rodker - to whom she was briefly married - The Woolfs, Mireille Havet, James Joyce and Paul and Essie Robeson, among many others, but it is the forensic nature of her Diaries which uniquely illuminates the age. Indeed, her essays, novels, Times literary criticism and diaries now find sanctuary at the Beinecke Library at the University of Yale. Our exhibition hopes to publicise this remarkable early feminist and, more generally, to promote the pursuit of personal sanctuary, in meditation and reflection, in our own daily lives – a matter of which Mary would surely approve.

Tebel Vos
76 x 71 x 41 cms 2021
Tebel Vos is the name of Mary's cottage, in the Cornish people's language. It sits above Sennen Cove and is typically translated as The House with No Name. Mary spent the last few years of her life here, writing her Sunday Times book reviews, her essays and her later novels, prior to her death in 1937. In Tebel Vos I have created a distilled version of the disarray with which Mary reputedly surrounded herself. Recycled scaffold board, resin, sea shells, discarded decorator's paint, my own box forms, fish hooks, gold leaf, acrylic, vintage brass devices for supporting library shelves and an ecclesiastical candle to symbolise Mary's return to Anglicanism. This piece is demountable, for ease of transport, should the need arise, and includes a folding shelf consisting largely of a discarded clutch plate from a Ford motor transmission.

Dancing Ledge
82 x 71 x 22 cms 2021
Dancing Ledge, on the Jurassic Coast, was a favourite haunt of Mary's. Even in her later years, when suffering from an arthritic hip, she could still be found among the rock pools, kelp beds and stranded octopi with a trusted walking stick, for support. A transcendent view of the landscape of the Dorset coast and its hinterland around Corfe castle and Badbury Rings frequently appears in her writing. Vintage mirror shards, copper pipe, recycled cabinet handles, recycled scaffold board, an oriental carved wooden head, acrylic, sand, gravel, gold leaf and an ecclesiastical candle complete the ensemble.

Hesiod
96 x 69 x 24 cms 2022
Mary was very fond of the Greek poet Hesiod who is thought to have been the first poet to have advocated a formal, societal, role for the poet, as the preserver of myth, history and identity, indeed as early historian. Earlier poetry is anonymous, apparently, although the author of The Psalms, David, King of Israel, and founder of Jerusalem, from about 2000 years before, is also widely recognised. Mary refers to Hesiod in her letters, now archived at the Beinecke Library at Yale, as does her husband, the poet, translator and publisher John Rodker (my grandfather), whose own diaries are now also archived at the Harry Ransom Library at The University of Texas. Recycled mixed media including wooden pre-Mao votive figures recovered from a Beijing skip, which contain Mandarin rice paper prayers in hidden compartments, recovered cabinet handles, gold leaf, sand, gravel, recycled scaffold board, water clear resin and rusting marine coach bolts.

Julian (The Apostate)
76 x 71 x 30 cms 2022
Mary was working on a study of Julian when she died unexpectedly, age 47, of an unsuspected perforated ulcer, in 1937, on the way to Truro hospital, in the back of ambulance. Julian, who was Roman Emperor between 361 and 363 CE, is chiefly remembered for his repudiation of Christianity, and for his determination to reinstate the earlier pagan beliefs, a matter also close to Mary's heart. Nonetheless Mary, after her time spent in the allegedly dissolute Jazz Age, in Paris, ended her years attending St. Mary's Church, perched on the hilltop above Sennen Cove, where her remains can today be found in the cemetery. Camilla was prevented from attending Mary's funeral by well meaning relatives because her 'exams were due', but restored Mary's headstone some fifty years later. Recycled mixed media.

The Crystal Cabinet
80 x 64 x 28 cms 2022
I always imagined Mary's autobiography, The Crystal Cabinet, to refer to a Victorian cabinet of curiosities, with figurines of milkmaids, early photos in silver frames, fragments of ivory from grand tours and, later, souvenirs of Margate or Clacton, the whole contained within chamfered, mercury glass panels. More recently I discovered that Mary had, in fact, named her autobiography after the poem of the same name by William Blake. Her father, Captain Butts, had inherited the entire collection of Blake illuminated manuscripts from his grandfather, Blake's only patron, and the Captain then built an extension to his house, Salterns, near Bournemouth as a gallery in which to exhibit them. Recycled mixed media including brass library shelf supports, wooden box devices (by the artist), water-clear resin, several found objects, including a bovine tooth from the Thames foreshore at Wapping and an ecclesiastical candle in recognition of Mary's later return to faith after the years of bohemian café society in Paris.

At Villefranche
68 x 62 x 22 cms 2021
The Welcome Hotel, in the village of Villefranche, on the Cote d'Azur, seems barely disturbed by the advent of tourism and was Mary's summer retreat. She stayed here with Jean Cocteau, Virgil Thompson and Paul and Essie Robson, among many others. She must have been on good terms with the hotel, because she talks in her diaries about coming in in the early hours via the kitchen door and going up to her room via the back stairs. The hotel is still there, is now Cocteau themed, and greets visitors with a huge sign, in English, on the gable end. Cocteau - a supremely instinctive draughtsman - gave Mary a memorable 1926 line portrait of herself which she used in her Christmas card of 1931. Recycled scaffold board, discarded decorator's paint, ginger jar, vintage brass devices for supporting library shelves, an ecclesiastical candle and a Rajasthani childrens' toy musician from the period.

For Mary
78 x 70 x 30 cms 2022
When clearing out Camilla's house, after her death, I came across a cardboard box containing a seemingly random selection of items which I only later realised must once have come from Tebel Vos. Did Tebel Vos have a lighthouse door knocker? I've included it in For Mary, just in case. Did the Rajasthani toy musician once belong to Mary, who was interested in oriental mysticism, classical mythology and the occult. Rusting marine coach bolts, discarded decorator's paint, recycled scaffold board, ecclesiastical candle and saucer, ginger jar and Rajasthani toy musician from the period.

Josephus
88 x 72 x 23 cms 2022
The latinised Josephus, from the Hebrew Yosef ben Matityahu, was the Temple priest and governor of Galilee who changed sides during the Roman siege of Jerusalem and who was then lauded in Roman society for his oracular skills, after predicting the imperial succession. His book, The History Of The Jewish War, has never been out of print, or manuscript, in 2000 years and tells us about the siege, and also about the impact on Roman, indeed on European, society, of those uniquely literate and numerate Jewish slaves who, on abduction to Rome, were then inducted into Roman society, often at the highest levels, in the Roman manner. Mary was familiar with Josephus, indeed wrote extensively about his near contemporaries Cleopatra and Alexander. Each individual panel can be rotated through the central aperture. Recycled mixed media including machine gun shells, coloured bottle glass fragments, sea shells, gold leaf, chain, sand, gravel and recycled scaffold board.

Salterns
62 x 65 x 23 cms 2022.
Salterns is the house in Poole, in Dorset, where Mary was born and where she spent her early years. Her father, The Colonel, added an additional gallery to the ground floor to display The William Blake illuminated manuscripts, which he had inherited from his grandfather, Thomas Butts, a civil servant of modest means who was Blake's only patron. Indeed we have Thomas Butts to thank for the preservation of Blake's work today. Perhaps Mary acquired her unique literary vision playing with her dolls beneath the inscrutable gaze of Urizen, Job and Lucifer. Recycled mixed media including the fish motif from my earlier Croatia paintings, vintage mirror, turned wooden devices, pre-Mao Chinese puppet heads, brass library shelf supports, water clear resin and recycled scaffold board.

The Macedonian(s)
93 x 67 x 25 cms 2022
Mary wrote The Macedonian in tribute to Alexander The Great, the Macedonian poet, composer, musician and military genius whose empire stretched from Egypt to the Punjab, where he is still revered today. Mary wrote about him less as an heroic military officer and more as a man we might meet in the street, likewise Cleopatra, whom she rendered as partner to Julius Caesar, even if Cleopatra betrayed him, and as mother to his son Caesarion, rather than the Hollywood seductress we are more likely familiar with. Alexander then hellenised his new Macedonian Empire before it was absorbed into the Roman Empire, and thus he is responsible for the style of much of the European culture and identity which we inherit from Rome today. Recycled mixed media including sea shells, machine gun bullet cases, pre-Mao discarded Chinese puppet heads, discarded vintage crockery and brass library shelf supports.