Debut exhibit features artists Clyde and Niki Butcher

COURTESY PHOTO Clyde Butcher's el capitan. The Southwest Florida Museum of History announces the debut exhibit of husband and wife photographers Niki and Clyde Butcher opening Thursday, Aug. 20.

The "Historic Florida Architecture and American Landscape" photography exhibit by Niki and Clyde Butcher will run through Oct. 31.

For the first time in Florida and exclusively for the museum, the duo will exhibit collectively up to 30 of their photographic specialties in a first-ever joint exhibition.

Beloved fine-arts black and white photographer Clyde Butcher will display a dozen of his landscapes from the "America the Beautiful" collection, including striking photographs that were composed in national parks such as Yosemite in California and Grand Teton in Wyoming.

"Wilderness, to me, is a spiritual necessity," said Mr. Butcher on his Web site.

Renowned for his spectacular black and white landscape photographs, Mr. Butcher's work has been featured in several publications and most recently, in a book commissioned to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Jamestown. His acclaimed book compiling National Park landscapes, "America the Beautiful," reveals the American landscape through his iconic mastery of black and white photography.

COURTESY PHOTO Ochopee Post Office by Niki Butcher. Premiering by her husband's side, Niki Butcher will exhibit up to 15 stunning hand-colored black and white photographs of Florida architecture in an artistic style popularized in the 1920s and 30s. Before the advent of color photography, painting black and white photographs was a popular technique that has since become a lost art.

Niki watched as a dignified old conch home was torn down and replaced by a sterile building, and felt compelled to photographically record Florida's unique architecture and culture before it disappeared.

"It was then that I felt the desire to record Florida's unique buildings in a photographic preservation of our state's history through its architecture," she said.

Thirty years ago, she began focusing her camera on the fading facades and changing cultures of Florida, capturing old shacks on sagging stilts, conch homes in the Florida Keys, and the mysterious cypress strands of the Everglades.

Remembering the gentle, surreal feel of those old Florida post cards, Niki chose to interpret her photographic images by hand-painting the scenes in colors that represented her emotions at the time she took the photograph.

"I like to take an image, and then add color that might not be entirely true to the original scene, but it helps me elicit an ambiance, or a fleeting feeling that I want to capture. I also delight in the idea that I've revived a photographic technique that once was popular, but now is nearly forgotten," she said.

The exhibit will be complemented by videos of Mr. Butcher's work and methods, as well as an exclusive display of one of his trademark Deardorf cameras. Niki's art tools will also be displayed for museum patrons to gain a greater understanding of the handcoloring process.

Be sure to stop by the museum store, which will feature books, notecards, prints and other merchandise from the Butchers, along with information about their annual "Muck About thru the Everglades," Sept. 5-7.

For more information, visit www. clydebutcher.com.

True fans won't want to miss a specially scheduled Author's Evening featuring Clyde Butcher from 6:30-8:30 pm. Thursday, Aug. 20, at the museum. Reservations are required as space is limited, and tickets are $10 per person. The museum's popular Author's Evening series returns in October but Mr. Butcher will be featured for this special season warm-up. The events include the author's presentation, coffee, and dessert courtesy of Mason's Bakery. All funds raised support the SWFL Museum of History Foundation for special exhibitions such as the Butchers' photography exhibit, Forbidden History, Lucy, Roswell and King Tut.

For more information, call 321-7430 or visit www.swflmuseumofhistory.com.