Hugh R. Butt

Hugh R. Butt was born in Delhaven, North Carolina, in 1910.  He earned his B.A. from the University of Minnesota and his M.D. from the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia, in 1933. A doctor at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, Butt was also a self-taught artist who created metal sculptures. In the 1980s he made a series of sculptures using antique tools he had collected. The artist wrote that this group of sculptures “signifies my belief that it sometimes takes a long time before tools find their proper usefulness.” He died in Minnesota in 2008.

Source: Tools as Art: the Hechinger Collection, published by Harry N. Abrams Inc.