America the Beautiful Through Clyde Butcher’s Eyes

The line was out the door to meet and get a signature from Clyde Butcher, the photographer known for his black and white photographs of the Everglades. Butcher, 83, kindly greeted each of his fans as they presented oversized books and calendars for him to sign. The April 9 event was the opening reception for his America the Beautiful exhibit at the Marco Island Historical Museum.

America the Beautiful is a collection of Butcher’s monumental landscapes, captured across the country.

“If you live in South Florida, you've probably heard the name Clyde Butcher,” said Heather Otis, curator of collections for the Marco Island Historical Society. “He's not only local here, but he also is called today's Ansel Adams. His large-format landscape photography is what he's best known for and he's world-famous. What I love about Clyde Butcher, though, in this exhibit in particular, is the images capture the real beauty of our American wilderness.”

Ansel Adams (1902-1984) is famous for his black-and-white photography of the American West, especially Yosemite National Park.

Otis said that sometimes it’s a challenge to fill all of the space in the Sandlin Gallery, the museum’s rotating gallery. That wasn’t the case with Butcher.

“The only problem we ran into,” she said, "which wasn't their problem, but ours, is that our square footage couldn't possibly hold all 42 of Clyde's pieces. Clyde's large-format photography is typically best viewed in large-format prints. Our largest piece is roughly nine feet wide, so my biggest struggle when putting this exhibit together was actually just trying to fit as many pieces as possible.”

Otis was able to settle on 36 photographs.

“The most important part,” she said, "was making sure we represented as many places as possible. It’s honestly not a bad problem to have too many pieces to choose from. It’s just a little bit heartbreaking to have to leave any of them out.”

In all, 15 states are represented in the exhibit, which runs through July 12.

Museum manager Rebecca Mazeroski is always thrilled to feature Butcher's work.

“Gorgeous work as usual,” Mazeroski said. “He brings more to life in black and white than a lot of people get with color. If someone says to me, " Is photography really an art,’ I say just look at Clyde Butcher's works.”

Butcher has shot exclusively in black and white since his son was killed by a drunken driver in 1986.

“As a very amateur photographer myself,” Otis said, "we all know how difficult it is to get a picture to reflect the true beauty of a place. The true feeling that you feel when you're in that place. And Clyde does that beautifully. At a time when he was hurting most after his son was killed, he fled into the wilderness and it became a source of solace and allowed him to regain his equilibrium in life. He wanted to pay that forward. And through the past decades, he's spent countless hours dedicating his art form to really capturing the most beautiful view or picture of these natural places throughout America and also throughout the world. As a person who really appreciates sincerity in someone's work, I think it really shines through with Clyde. Really, there's no one who does that better. When you stand in front of his piece, when you come to visit the exhibit, you can really get that feeling, that same feeling as when you see that landscape in person. It might take him several hours or several days to get that perfect shot, but that's all a part of his process.”