Untitled (Nativity)

  • Click on image to enlarge

    Photo: Stephen Pitkin/Pitkin Studio
  • Click on image to enlarge

    Photo: Stephen Pitkin/Pitkin Studio
late 1960s
Found plastic fragments, steel wire, and paint on sheet steel
27.5 x 42.5 x 3 inches
Collection of
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco museum purchase American Art Trust Fund and gift of the Souls Grown Deep Foundation
Description

David Butler spent much of his adult life working in Louisiana sawmills. After an injury led to his early retirement in the 1960s, he bought a small house and planted a garden: “I like pretty things in my yard, you see. But when the storms come and it gets cold, my flowers die.” Butler subsequently decided to make colorful creations out of cut sheet tin so that he could have a garden like environment all year round. Butler also shielded his windows with cut tin shades that cast silhouetted shadows inside the house. These window shades sometimes feature religious imagery, like this nativity scene depicting Mary, Joseph, and the Christ child beneath three stars. —Lauren Palmor