Since 1985 Linda Butler has worked as an independent art-photographer and is known for her explorations of other cultures. Her most recent book, Yangtze Remembered: The River Beneath the Lake, is an historical document of the Three Gorges Dam project in China. During a three-year period (from 2000 – 2003) Butler made eight trips to China. She captured the complexity of the Three Gorges Project and the beauty of the Yangtze before life was changed forever by the dam. Through her photographs we see common people, architectural interiors and dramatic landscapes. We watch the destruction of the old way of life and the construction of the new in before-and-after photographs of the river and its shores. Published by Stanford University Press (©2004), Yangtze Remembered explores the historical and environmental context of the dam through 109 photographs and 55 pages of text. Butler’s other books include Italy: In the Shadow of Time (Rizzoli International ©1998), Rural Japan: Radiance of the Ordinary (Smithsonian Institution Press ©1992), and Inner Light: The Shaker Legacy (Knopf ©1985).
Linda was born in Appleton, Wisconsin in 1947; she graduated from Antioch College and did her graduate degree at the University of Michigan. Since her graduation, she has lived with her husband, Steven Nissen, in Ann Arbor, MI, Sacramento, CA, and Lexington KY. At present, they make their home outside of Cleveland, Ohio.
Butler has had more than 50 one-person shows in the United States, Canada and Japan. Her work has been exhibited in many major museums, including Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts and the Corcoran Gallery of Art, the Whitney Museum of Art and the Yokohama Museum of Art in Japan.
