- 46
JACK B. YEATS, R.H.A. | The Lonely Sea
Estimate
100,000 - 150,000 GBP
Log in to view results
bidding is closed
Description
- Jack B. Yeats, R.H.A.
- The Lonely Sea
- signed l.l.: JACK B/ YEATS
- oil on canvas
- 36 by 53.5cm, 14 by 21in.
- Painted in 1947.
Provenance
Sold by the artist to Leo Smith, Dublin, 1948;
M.J. Doran (Davy Byrne's);
Adam's, Dublin, 14 May 1976, lot 51;
Dillon Antiques, Dublin, 1986
M.J. Doran (Davy Byrne's);
Adam's, Dublin, 14 May 1976, lot 51;
Dillon Antiques, Dublin, 1986
Exhibited
Boston, Boston College Museum of Art, America’s Eye: Irish Paintings from the Collection of Brian P. Burns, 26 January - 19 May 1996, no.44, illustrated p.135, with tour to Dublin, Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery of Modern Art, 19 June - 25 August 1996 and New Haven, Yale Center for British Art, 25 September 1997 - 4 January 1998;
Washington, John F. Kennedy Center, Irish Paintings from the Collection of Brian P. Burns, 13 - 28 May 2000, illustrated p.104
Washington, John F. Kennedy Center, Irish Paintings from the Collection of Brian P. Burns, 13 - 28 May 2000, illustrated p.104
Literature
Hilary Pyle, Jack B. Yeats, Catalogue Raisonne of the Oil Paintings, Dublin, 1992, Vol.II, no.854, p.769
Condition
The following condition report has been prepared by Hamish Dewar Ltd, London UNCONDITIONAL AND WITHOUT PREJUDICE Structural Support The canvas has been strip-lined onto a new wooden stretcher. The reverse of the canvas has an application of adhesive. This has successfully secured the pattern of drying craquelure, particularly within the thicker impasto, which is very characteristic of Yeats. Paint surface The paint surface has an even if rather glossy varnish layer which could be resolved by revarnishing with a matter surface coating if required. There is a vertical line running parallel to, and 4 cm in from, the right vertical framing edge which appears to be in wet paint and therefore integral to the work. Inspection under ultraviolet light shows just a few very minimal spots and lines of retouching within the thick impasto. These are all of minimal size. Summary The painting would therefore appear to be in good and stable condition. FRAME Held in a gilt plaster frame, ready to hang.
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."
Catalogue Note
'His paintings have that vitality which can only come from true artistry; they convince and vibrate with colour and movement showing an instinctively natural and unerring selectivity: Yeats was the true painter poet.’
(Royal Hibernian Academy, Annual Report, Dublin, 1957) A golden-haired child lies on the bank of a stream. He holds a pink flower over the water and gazes down at the reflection which is alluded to by a stroke of yellow beneath. A verdant hedge of green shrubs and wild irises closes off the horizon and adds to the intimacy of the scene. The boy’s engrossed expression, his serene face with wide set eyes and ruby lips, and the crouched form of his body are reminiscent of the Ancient Greek myth of Narcissus, in which a youth falls in love with his reflection and is punished by the gods by being turned into a narcissus flower. But in Yeats’s painting the figure seems to be less interested in himself than by the plant and the water. His curiosity is more about the world around him.
The poetic title, The Lonely Sea, may suggest the purpose of the experiment – the dispatching of a botanical specimen to the ocean but equally it indicates the solitariness of the boy. The golden-haired child is a recurring motif in Yeats’s later paintings. He appears in Tinkers’ Encampment. Blood of Abel, (1940, Private Collection), Above the Fair, (1946, National Gallery of Ireland) and Grief, (1951, National Gallery of Ireland). In Sea Depths, (1947, Private Collection), a golden haired boy looks over the side of a boat into the water.
Hilary Pyle has suggested that the child ‘proclaims his symbolic role for the artist’ and that his freedom to create and imagine are akin to that of the painter or the writer. (Hilary Pyle, op. cit., Vol.II, p.1064). In The Lonely Sea he exemplifies the visionary capacity of humankind and with his bare feet drawn up beneath him the child is also closely bound to nature. His flesh is sculpted out of rich impasto paint. The swirling forms of green and yellow pigment unite the figure with the surrounding foliage. His tousled hair is blown by the same breezes that rustle the leaves behind him. The outline of the shrubbery echoes that of the reclining figure, but the wild unsettled movement of light and shade, embodied in the range of brushstrokes indicates the tenuousness of the moment and the inability of humankind to prevent the onward march of time and the natural world.
Róisín Kennedy
(Royal Hibernian Academy, Annual Report, Dublin, 1957) A golden-haired child lies on the bank of a stream. He holds a pink flower over the water and gazes down at the reflection which is alluded to by a stroke of yellow beneath. A verdant hedge of green shrubs and wild irises closes off the horizon and adds to the intimacy of the scene. The boy’s engrossed expression, his serene face with wide set eyes and ruby lips, and the crouched form of his body are reminiscent of the Ancient Greek myth of Narcissus, in which a youth falls in love with his reflection and is punished by the gods by being turned into a narcissus flower. But in Yeats’s painting the figure seems to be less interested in himself than by the plant and the water. His curiosity is more about the world around him.
The poetic title, The Lonely Sea, may suggest the purpose of the experiment – the dispatching of a botanical specimen to the ocean but equally it indicates the solitariness of the boy. The golden-haired child is a recurring motif in Yeats’s later paintings. He appears in Tinkers’ Encampment. Blood of Abel, (1940, Private Collection), Above the Fair, (1946, National Gallery of Ireland) and Grief, (1951, National Gallery of Ireland). In Sea Depths, (1947, Private Collection), a golden haired boy looks over the side of a boat into the water.
Hilary Pyle has suggested that the child ‘proclaims his symbolic role for the artist’ and that his freedom to create and imagine are akin to that of the painter or the writer. (Hilary Pyle, op. cit., Vol.II, p.1064). In The Lonely Sea he exemplifies the visionary capacity of humankind and with his bare feet drawn up beneath him the child is also closely bound to nature. His flesh is sculpted out of rich impasto paint. The swirling forms of green and yellow pigment unite the figure with the surrounding foliage. His tousled hair is blown by the same breezes that rustle the leaves behind him. The outline of the shrubbery echoes that of the reclining figure, but the wild unsettled movement of light and shade, embodied in the range of brushstrokes indicates the tenuousness of the moment and the inability of humankind to prevent the onward march of time and the natural world.
Róisín Kennedy