Clyde Butcher has been called “The Ansel Adams of Florida.” But there’s got to be a better way to describe how faithfully and magnificently he has captured the natural beauty of the state for so many years.
Butcher curated a new exhibition at The Bishop Museum of Science and Nature in Bradenton that opened on Dec. 12. It’s called “Lifeworks in Photography.”
Andrew Sandall is the CEO of the Bishop and said this exhibit covers his work as he gets into the later stages of his career.
“Now, this is one where it's kind of his highlights, his personal highlights, whether it's the stories behind them or whether it's just he thinks they're stunning photographs, so they're (Clyde and his wife, Niki) very involved in all of this,” Sandall said.
Butcher is scheduled to speak at the Bishop in early January, and Sandall is quick to praise his work — calling him one of the "greatest documentarians of the natural world."
“A lot of people compare him to Ansel Adams, the great nature photographer, and Clyde Butcher, is kind of working in formats that most people today don't work in. But seeing his photography, particularly his Florida photography, gives you a chance to see nature in a way that I think it will be stunning to a lot of people who've only ever seen digital photographs or have never seen someone use format old, classic photography techniques,” Sandall said.
At least one of his cameras is over 100 years old.
Butcher told WUSF years ago that he was visiting the old roadside attraction, “Tom Gaskins Cypress Knee Museum” off U.S. 27, when he went out back and decided Florida’s environment was worth preserving in photographs.
Since then, he’s captured images in Cuba and Spain, around where Salvador Dali grew up and other places. But he’s probably best known for finding wild places that document in photographs why these parts of Florida need to be preserved.
Sandall is originally from England. But he has lived and worked in Florida since 2008.
“There's very few things you can bring in that's more popular with Floridians than Clyde Butcher. I mean, he is a national treasure of Florida, so I've seen his work all over the place, been to a lot of his exhibits. And this is kind of a shift we're trying to do at the museum of having, particularly during snowbird season, having an exhibit where people who are just in the area temporarily, or have got family coming in, we can bring them in to see exhibits that really show off where they're living,” he said.
Sandall said this exhibition will show the best of Florida and its photographs.
The Bishop is known for its planetarium shows and natural history. But Sandall said they’ve been changing things up since he started in 2023.
“We've totally rebuilt all the education program we do here, restructured a lot of that department, doing a lot of work in the planetarium, where the programming has become a lot more family-focused, but also a lot more that we're writing this unique programming, so it's interesting for people who live locally can come back and see it regularly,” he said.
The museum is also known for helping to rehabilitate young manatees who’ve been injured in the wild. Sandall said the manatees there now will likely be released back into the wild in January or February.
