Texas philanthropist’s collection is shown to the public for the first time in this statewide touring exhibition, reflecting the multifold histories of American art
HOUSTON—June 29, 2026—American Modernism from the Charles Butt Collection is the first exhibition organized from the collection of philanthropist and Texas native Charles Butt. Featuring over 80 works of art by such icons as Stuart Davis, Georgia O’Keeffe, Jacob Lawrence, Thomas Hart Benton, Jackson Pollock, Joan Mitchell, and Andrew Wyeth, as well as Texas artists like Everett Gee Jackson and Mary Bonner, the exhibition reflects and recontextualizes the multifold histories of American art by sharing Butt’s perspective on American creativity and presenting his collection to the public for the first time. The exhibition is on view at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, from October 25, 2026, through January 18, 2027.
“Charles Butt is widely known in Texas for his philanthropy and abiding commitment to education,” comments Gary Tinterow, director and Margaret Alkek Williams chair of the MFAH. “Less known, until now, is his discerning eye and passion for American art, as expressed by some of our most accomplished artists in the 20th century. We are pleased to host his distinguished group of American modernist paintings in Houston, and grateful to the Amon Carter Museum of American Art for organizing the exhibition and this statewide tour.”
“American Modernism from the Charles Butt Collection is imbued with a sense of adventure and a sense of place,” adds Alison de Lima Greene, MFAH Isabel Brown Wilson Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, and co-curator of the Houston presentation. “More than a textbook survey of American modernism, the Charles Butt Collection shows many of the artists at turning points in their careers, with signature works and intimate sketches that encompass a remarkable range of expression and achievement.”
Dr. Kaylin Weber, MFAH Lora Jean Kilroy Curator of American Painting and Sculpture, also comments: “Mr. Butt’s appetite for collecting was whetted during his college years, when he discovered the work of Winslow Homer, and many years later he was able to acquire one of Homer’s great Bermuda watercolors from 1885. Each work in the Charles Butt Collection shows the same steadiness of vision and commitment to excellence.”
The exhibition’s five thematic sections reflect Charles Butt’s lifelong passions. The first is “Intimate Perspectives,” which highlights the vitality of human connections and personal experience. Featured artists include those who shared warm friendships, demonstrated by Edward Hopper’s 1904 Portrait of Guy Pène du Bois. Romantic connections and family gatherings are seen in works by Marguerite Zorach, Rufino Tamayo, and Romare Bearden, as well as the self-contained individualism found in Marsden Hartley’s Prayer on Park Avenue (1942) and Bill Traylor’s Man in Red Shirt with Hat, Umbrella, and Lunchbox (1939–42). Among the most iconic works of this section is Georgia O’Keeffe’s My Backyard (1945), which captures the vast distances of the New Mexico landscape outside her Ghost Ranch studio, vividly compressed on an intimately scaled canvas.
“The Language of the Sea” presents the sea as a fundamental motif in the history of American art; it is also a major influence on Charles Butt’s collecting practice, following his childhood spent near the Gulf of Mexico in Corpus Christi, Texas. This section features Maurice Prendergast’s Festival, Venice (1899), Thomas Moran’s recently discovered 1907 watercolor Smoking Ships at Sea, etchings of sailboats by celebrated Texas artist Mary Bonner, and more abstract renderings of marine views, such as Arthur Dove’s minimally rendered Boat Going through an Inlet (1928). Among the most poignant works included in this section is Andrew Wyeth’s Sea Legs (1984), which portrays a retired sailor lost in contemplation as he faces real or imagined gray seas.
“Land Progressions” explores how landscape shaped America’s response to modernism, and how artists subverted landscape conventions to chart more personal journeys. On display will be examples by the painters associated with Alfred Stieglitz’s vanguard 291 gallery, including Arthur Dove and Marsden Hartley, and John Marin is represented in particular depth with nine of his Weekhawken Sequences (c. 1916), as well as one of his last paintings of the New York skyline seen from Weehawken, New Jersey (1949). Additional works by George Bellows and Hans Hofmann document artists’ painterly responses to the landscape, and a special section in the Houston presentation will be devoted to seven visionary watercolors by Charles Burchfield.
“Geometric Utopias/Dystopias” opens with a selection of urban and rural post-industrial scenes: factories, farms, and machinery, including works by Ralston Crawford, Stuart Davis, Jacob Lawrence, and Charles Sheeler, as well as Thomas Hart Benton, and his student Jackson Pollock. Also featured in this section are such maverick independents as Blanche Lazzell and Alice Trumbull Mason, women who embraced geometric abstraction as a force for promoting utopian ideals.
The exhibition concludes with “New Directions,” which introduces the nonobjective work of Ellsworth Kelly, Mark Rothko, and Alma Thomas. A major monoprint and a suite of lithographs by Jasper Johns from the Charles Butt Collection, added exclusively to the Houston venue, brings the exhibition to a close, leaving visitors to reconsider what it means to be an American artist.
Organization and Funding
American Modernism from the Charles Butt Collection is organized by the Amon Carter Museum of American Art in Fort Worth with support from the Texas Commission on the Arts and includes a fully illustrated catalogue. American Modernism was curated by Shirley Reece-Hughes, curator of paintings, sculpture and works on paper at the Amon Carter Museum, and at the MFAH, the exhibition is co-coordinated by Alison de Lima Greene, Isabel Brown Wilson Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, and Kaylin H. Weber, Lora Jean Kilroy Curator of American Painting and Sculpture.
