American Modernist Works to Debut at the Carter

• Intimate Perspectives: The exhibition’s first section explores the significance and role of intimacy and trust in artmaking. Pairing works by artists who had close relationships, “Intimate Perspectives” reveals the influence that interpersonal exchanges and confidences had on these artists and their output. Featured pairings include the friends Edward Hopper and Guy Pene Du Bois; John La Farge and Winslow Homer; and Thomas Hart Benton and his mentee Jackson Pollock. The section also features paintings of contemplative, private intimacy: from Romare Bearden’s personal depictions of families to Alice Neel’s Fire Escape (1948) which reveals a new, less-exhibited dimension of the artist’s work by deviating from her typical portraiture. Other works in the section encourage intimacy and close-looking in their small scale, like Georgia O’Keeffe’s My Backyard (1945).

• The Language of the Sea: The sea is a fundamental motif in the canon of art history, and following a childhood spent near the Gulf of Mexico in Corpus Christi, Texas, it is also a major influence on Charles Butt’s collecting practice. This section of the exhibition concentrates on artists’ connections to and associations with America’s coastlines, foregrounding the salient economic and socio-cultural symbols often found in marine paintings. Works in this section range from etchings of sailboats by celebrated Texas artist Mary Bonner, who went to study art and printmaking in France, where she depicted some of her first ocean views; and Thomas Moran’s recently discovered 1907  watercolor Smoking Ships at Sea that forebodes the dangers of maritime and industrial ambition; to more abstract interpretations of ocean views such as Ralston Crawford’s Bora Bora II (1975-76), where maritime motifs are merely suggested to direct focus to the visual and emotional weight of the sea.

• Land Progressions: This section explores the significance of land to the creation of American Modernism, and how artists subverted the familiar visual tradition of landscape art to respond to their environments. A unique display of early, mid-career, and late paintings by leading American modernist Marsden Hartley reveals the artist’s dramatic stylistic evolution through his depictions of the varying terrains in his home state of Maine and the dry climate of New Mexico. Other works in this section reflect the influence of industrialization and the threat it poses to American land. Prime examples from John Marin’s Weehawken Series, of which Butt has collected nearly every known work, depict changes to the land and sea by industrial encroachment in the harbor city of Weehawken in Marin’s home state of New Jersey.  The artist responded to the turmoil with an innovative style that fused elements of Impressionism, Fauvism, and Cubism to convey the rapidity of change in modern America, devising an expression that would later influence a generation of Abstract Expressionists.

• Geometric Utopias/Dystopias: The exhibition’s final section consists of geometric abstractions alongside paintings depicting urban and rural post-industrial scenes: factories, farms, and machinery. Placed in tandem, the works in this section are emblematic of the fragility, and in some cases pessimism, of American society in an industrial age. Central to “Geometric Utopias/Dystopias” are female artists like Blanche Lazzell and Alice Trumbell Mason who saw themselves as revolutionaries, optimistically employing abstraction to create new visual styles and to break from the hyper-masculine nationalism that characterized much work of the period. Through their paintings, which feature no identifiable subject matter, Lazzell and Mason avoided potential gendered readings of their work and advanced the formal, technical, and conceptual evolution of abstract art in the United States. Both the abstract and figurative works in this section embrace simplified geometries and convey the revised sense of American self-identification established in the early- to mid-twentieth century.

“The work in Charles Butt’s collection demonstrates the complexity and breadth of American visual culture in the twentieth century,” said Shirley Reece-Hughes, Curator of Paintings, Sculpture, and Works on Paper at the Carter, who is spearheading the exhibition. “The American modernist narrative is crucial to the Carter’s own collection, and this exhibition will both reveal new perspectives on some of America’s most well-known artists and introduce lesser-known artistic voices to our visitors, offering an expanded understanding of twentieth-century American art.”

In line with Butt’s commitment to education, the exhibition features robust, bilingual interpretive and educational components, including a free takeaway brochure featuring an interview between Charles Butt and Andrew Walker. The Carter will also publish a fully illustrated catalogue to accompany the exhibition, featuring the interview as well as essays by Shirley Reece-Hughes and Erika Doss (University of Dallas).

American Modernism from the Charles Butt Collection is organized by the Amon Carter Museum of American Art. The exhibition will travel exclusively to four venues in Texas, reflecting Butt’s civic dedication and passion for sharing American visual culture with communities in his home state. The exhibition will travel to the Blanton Museum of Art in spring 2026, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston in fall 2026, and the McNay Art Museum in spring of 2027.

Charles Butt (b. 1938) is the Chairman of H-E-B and a prominent philanthropist deeply committed to education in Texas. He is the grandson of H-E-B’s founder Florence Butt, who started the first H-E-B in 1905 with just $60. Charles’s mother, Mary Elizabeth Holdsworth Butt, was a teacher and advocate for mental health and social justice and instilled in Charles the value of education and the importance of serving others. Charles became president of H-E-B in 1971, and later established the Charles Butt Foundation, which supports charitable organizations and nonprofit causes ranging from disaster relief to environmental efforts to hunger relief and education. Through his personal, professional, and philanthropic pursuits, he has continued to advance the lives of Texans by developing educational and community-centered partnerships focused on providing equitable and prosperous futures.