Illustrating War and Migration: George Butler at UVA

Illustrator, journalist, and Pulitzer Center grantee George Butler will visit the University of Virginia, in collaboration with Virginia Quarterly Review (VQR), to speak with students and share his experiences merging art and journalism. Butler draws in real time as a witness, documenting conflict zones, climate issues, humanitarian crises, and social issues for the news in pen, ink, and watercolor. 

Butler will present to students on Tuesday, September 19, 2023, at 5:00pm EDT, with a Q&A moderated by VQR editor Paul Reyes. Copies of Butler's Drawn Across Borders will be available for purchase and signing. The next day, September 20, Butler will engage with students and visit classes at the University of Virginia. 

Over the last 15 years, Butler has been commissioned to offer a deliberately slow alternative to the headlines. He attaches his drawings to the personal testimonies of those he meets and records their resolve and resilience alongside the vulnerability of their situations.

This has included a leprosy clinic in Nepal, a militia in Yemen, the mass graves in Bucha, a cesarean section in Afghanistan, the artisanal oil fields of Myanmar, the aftermath of the earthquake in Turkey and Syria, and most recently, the war in Ukraine, published in VQR.