Eugenia Butler, Sr.

Eugenia Butler (n.d., 1922 – 21 December 2000) was an American art dealer and collector. In 1963, she became the American representative of Galleria Del Deposito, which featured work by European artists who made functional art objects, such as trays or jewels. She co-directed the Los Angeles Gallery 669 with founder Riko Mizuno from 1967, and ran the Eugenia Butler Gallery on La Cienega from 1968 to 1971. Her gallery showed the work of conceptual artists, including John Baldessari, James Lee Byars, Douglas Huebler, and her daughter, Eugenia P. Butler.

Early life, education and military career
Eugenia Butler was born Eugenia Louise Jefferson in Bakersfield, California. She attended Scripps College in Claremont, CA and served as a master sergeant in the Marines during World War II. After World War II, Butler married James G. Butler, a lawyer and former pilot who had accumulated a small fortune as a drug products lawyer. Their daughter, Eugenia P. Butler, was an artist.

Career
Butler's first venture as an art dealer was to serve as the American representative of Galleria Del Deposito, which was established in 1963. Galleria Del Deposito was based in Genoa, Italy, and served as the exhibition space for Gruppo Cooperativo di Boccadasse, an artist collective Eugenio Carmi and Carlo Fedeli founded in Italy. The group made and sold functional art objects, and distributed monthly bulletins and a mail order catalogue to reach an international audience. In 1967, she joined dealer Riko Mizuno as co-director of Gallery 669 on La Cienega Boulevard (Mizuno had opened the gallery the previous year, in 1966). They exhibited paintings and etchings by artist Henry Miller and work by Ed Kienholz and gave Joseph Kosuth his first Los Angeles exhibition. After parting ways with Mizuno, Butler opened the Eugenia Butler Gallery in 1968, at 615 N. La Cienega Boulevard.

Exhibitions
The gallery owner staged a 30-day exhibition for Icelandic artist Dieter Rot, which consisted of 20 suitcases filled with cheese.