Jack Butler Yeats, R.H.A.

Mrs James Stafford, Wexford, 1943;
Dr and Mrs T.J. Walsh, Dublin;
Christie's, Dublin, 24 October 1988, lot 71;
Waddington Galleries, London, where purchased by the present owner in 2001

London, Royal Institute Galleries, 9th Annual Exhibition, National Society of Painters, Sculptors etc., January - February 1938;
London, Contemporary Art Society, Exhibition, June 1938;
Dublin, Contemporary Picture Galleries, In Theatre Street, 26 November - 23 December 1942;
Lund, Konsthall, Sweden, From Yeats to Ballagh, April - May 1972, no.51;
London, Waddington Galleries, Twentieth Century Works, 26 April - 20 May 1989, no.33, illustrated p.71;
Dublin, Kerlin Gallery, Jack B Yeats/Ivon Hitchens, 1 - 27 November 1991, no.14, illustrated;
Manchester City Art Galleries, Jack B Yeats: A Celtic Visionary, 9 March - 2 April 1996, no.10, illustrated in colour; with tour to Leeds City Art Gallery, 27 April - 2 June; Ormeau Baths Gallery, Belfast, 6 June - 6 July;
London, Waddington Galleries and Theo Waddington Fine Art, Jack B Yeats: Paintings and Works on Paper, 20 November - 21 December 1996, no.26

Hilary Pyle, Jack Butler Yeats, A Catalogue Raisonné of the Oil Paintings, Vol.I., Andre Deutsch, London, 1992, no.477, p.432, illustrated and Vol.III, illustrated p.295;
T. G. Rosenthal, The Art of Jack B Yeats, Andre Deutsch, London, 1993, no.52, illustrated p.97

Original canvas. There is a faint craquelure pattern visible in the white of the sky in the upper right corner, with a couple of minor associated paint losses. This may benefit from stabilizing, otherwise the work appears in good overall condition with strong passages of impasto. Under ultraviolet light there appear to be no signs of retouching. Held under glass in a gilt plaster frame; unexamined out of frame.
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Seated on a bench by a sandy path, Jack Butler Yeats depicts a man in a black hat reading. The path leads to a building, beyond which the sea is visible and on the horizon a storm gathers. As was common for the artist from the 1930s onwards, the view is an imaginary one. Yeats said the painting represented a seaside scene that could be found anywhere in Ireland rather than denoting a particular place. In this way, Yeats's pictures could encapsulate a wider frame of reference which a more recognizable subject might inhibit. Clearly it is not just the man that is the subject of the work but the storm itself - the title of painting. That there is a connection between the two is evident but the precise relationship remains ambiguous. The storm is seen forming on the horizon, the rain denoted by a grey-purple pigment which, as Hilary Pyle points out, is also reflected in the man's face.

The distinctive brilliance of Yeats' paintings following his revolutionary change of style from the mid-1920s was his ability to shape form and emotion with colour. Yeats's paintings were no longer delineated by strong lines but became increasingly expressive. Brushwork and colour were freed, interacting together to create a wholly new vision, which presented their own challenges and rewards. When Samuel Becket encountered the present work, he described it as the 'fuchsia' picture in a letter to Thomas MacGreevy and while finding it lovely, felt it bore 'something more like artificial excitement' (TCD Ms, 10402, 17 July 1936). However, upon seeing the work on a subsequent occasion, he revised his opinion and was pleased by the composition. 

Yeats once told Victor Waddington that if his paintings worked for everyone in different ways it was a good painting (see H. Pyle, op. cit., p.xxix). Paradoxically, although it was Yeats' subjectivity that defined his paintings in the latter part of his career, this was not to the exclusion of the viewer. Through the animation of his compositions, the viewer is drawn into the picture, and invited to question and interpret the works for themselves. In A Storm / Gaillshion, we see this ambition fully realised.