Melvin F. Butor

Melvin F. Butor works in the field of relief sculpture, exploring how light—directed, reflected, and projected through—interacts with material to create shape and color. He is Professor Emeritus at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, where he taught painting and sculpture from 1966 through 1994.

Butor’s most prominent work is the large-scale mural that he was commissioned by the town of Stoughton, Wisconsin, to create to commemorate its sesquicentennial. But his work has been exhibited his work widely in Wisconsin and across the country, including at the American Federation of Arts Gallery and the Grippi & Waddell Gallery, both in New York City, and in the District of Columbia’s legendary Mickelson Gallery. His work is in the permanent collections of the Wustum Museum of Fine Arts, the D. Erlien Fine Arts Gallery, the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, the Kohler Arts Center, the corporate collection of Philip Morris, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and Atlanta University.

Butor earned a bachelor’s degree in Education and a Master of Arts degree, both from Kent State University. He won numerous student and non-student awards while at Kent State. He is also a graduate of the Cleveland Institute of Art.