Georgia Artist Butler Brown

We do about 8-10 estate sales a year at Sweet Southern Home and this has definitely been the year of the artist. We handled renowned local artists Gloria Ragland and Sarah Muse’s estate sales and the last few sales have contained many Butler Brown signed and numbered prints as well.

Butler Brown was born in Vienna, Georgia in 1937 and passed away at age 82 in 2020. His works rose to fame in the 1970’s when Rosalyn Carter gifted several of his works to her husband Jimmy who was President of the United States in 1976. This national exposure made Mr. Brown’s work and his landscape paintings of scenes in Middle Georgia featured in homes around the world from Saudi princes to rock and roll stars’ homes.

Butler was a self-taught artist who liked to doodle on used punch cards at Robins Air Force Base where he was employed. Y’all young folks are not going to know what punch cards are! Ask your mom or dad. Anyway, Butler’s wife bought him some art supplies and he took some lessons and taught himself to paint.

Mr. Brown also painted a couple of featured prints for the Cherry Blossom Festival in Macon in 1992 and 1998. Butler was generous with his talent and taught many others how to paint and donated many of his paintings to charitable causes. He was featured in People and Newsweek Magazines as well as many other art magazines.

Perhaps you will recognize some of his popular subjects such as primitive homes, farmhouses, bluebirds, the state bird, the Brown Thrasher and even the Perry Methodist Church. Sadly as artists pass, their works generally become more valuable. This has been the case with Mr. Brown’s works. Happy Collecting!

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