Mildred Anne Butler was a landscape painter. She was one of the first professional female artists in Ireland.
Mildred Anne was born in 1858 and spent most of her life at the family home, Kilmurry, in Co. Kilkenny. She outlived her five brothers and sisters and Kilmurray was left to her. This was a Georgian house, surrounded by meadows and a lake. It also had a beautiful garden.
Mildred's watercolour paintings often show birds, animals and plants from the area.
In the early 1880s, Mildred Anne went to Brussels and Paris to study art. There she met other Irish artists such as Walter Osbourne and John Lavery. In 1896, her painting Morning Bath was bought by the Tate Gallery in London. This was a great honour for a female artist at that time.
Mildred Anne's art became more and more popular. Queen Alexandra of Demark bought one of her paintings in 1910. In 1924, she also painted a tiny watercolour of rooks for Queen Mary's doll's house.
Towards the end of her life, Mildred Anne had a lot of pain in her hands. Eventually she had to give up painting. She died in 1941.
Some of Mildred Anne's paintings are in the National Gallery of Ireland, the Ulster Museum and the Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery in Dublin.