English sculptor of figurative works noted for their strenuous quality of line.

Butler studied architecture and lectured at the Architectural Association School, London (1937–39). He worked for a time as a blacksmith, and his early openwork sculptures in wrought iron reflect this training. His first one-man exhibition was held in London in 1949, and in 1952 and 1954 he exhibited at the prestigious Venice Biennale. Butler's work in shell bronze from the mid-1950s shows an increasing concern with volume and texture; his continued preoccupation with line, however, lends the naturalistic nudes of this period a distinctive tension. After 1960, rejecting a set personal idiom, he sculpted abstract towers, nudes influenced by African primitive art, and realistically painted erotic nudes.