Jack B. Yeats, R.H.A.

Victor Waddington Galleries, London, whence purchased by William MacQuitty, 1951;
Sale, Christie's London, October 1972;
Mrs Scharf, London;
Sale, De Vere White & Taylor, Dublin, October 1988;
Private Collection

Dublin, National College of Art, Irish Exhibition of Living Art, 16 August - 17 September 1949;
Edinburgh, Scottish National Council of UN Association, United Nations International Art Exhibition, 18 August - 9 September 1951, no.72;
Derry, Arts Council of Northern Ireland, North West Arts Festival, April, 1964;
Belfast, Arts Council of Northern Ireland, May Festival, 1964, no.59.

National Gallery of Ireland, Jack B. Yeats in the National Gallery of Ireland, exh.cat., 26 March - 20 April 1986, p.78, fig.32;
Hilary Pyle, Jack B. Yeats, A Catalogue Raisonné of the Oil Paintings, London 1992, no.964, illustrated.

Original canvas. There is a patch applied to the reverse below the centre of the upper edge and there are some minor scattered areas of minor paint separation otherwise in good overall condition with strong passages of impasto throughout. Under ultraviolet light, there is a fine line of retouching approx. 5cm. long corresponding to the aforementioned patch below the centre of the upper edge. Held in a painted plater and gilt frame.
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Meeting the Dawn or Ag Tabhairt Aghaidh Ar An Lo was executed in 1948, at the climax of arguably the most fruitful decade for the artist in terms of his work in oil. During the 1940s, he consolidated the powerful painting style he had been developing over previous decades (see lot 139 for an earlier example) and the present work demonstrates the confident impasto that had become a trademark of his style; the assertive strokes boldly define form and content and at the same time, they verge scintillatingly on the abstract.  In the present composition, a cloaked rider and a man carrying a banner lead a procession of figures towards the blazing light on the horizon. In terms of subject matter, Yeats had always been interested in destiny and the ongoing cycle of life and death and here, the group of figures literally march out to confront their future and meet their 'dawn'.

Within the context of the 1940s when the Second World War had certainly questioned the future of the world at he knew it, Yeats' interest in destiny takes on an added significance. In his seminal oil of 1946, Men of Destiny (Coll. National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin), the powerful silhouettes of the fishermen on the quay are the ultimate manifestation of Yeats' vision of the heroes to lead in the fight for a new future. He wrote in Sligo, 'let them uplift us, shoulder high. There we will be able to see over their heads to the several promised lands, from which we have come, and to which we trust to go' (Yeats, quoted in Pyle, op.cit., p.lxvi). In the present work, one of these heroes leads the procession towards the 'promised lands', the bright glow on the horizon symbolizing the hope for a better future. At the centre of the composition, Yeats' optimism is embodied in the mother, child and toddler who symbolize the ongoing cycle of life and death.