Jack Butler Yeats, R.H.A.

R. Brereton Barry, S.C.;
Terence de Vere White;
Private collection, Co. Cork;
De Veres, Dublin, 30 November 2005, lot 57, where purchased by the present owner

London, Alpine Club Gallery, Paintings, 24 June - 7 July 1930, no.22;
Dublin, Engineer's Hall, Paintings, 21 April - 5 May 1931, no.21;
Dublin, Contemporary Picture Galleries, Later Work, 27 October - 8 November 1941, no.10;
Cork, Crawford School of Art, Some Paintings by Modern Irish Artists, April - May 1960, no.67;
Cork, Crawford Municipal Art Gallery, Irish Art, 1943-1973, 24 August - 7 November 1980;
Limerick, The Hunt Museum, 2004

Hillary Pyle, Jack Butler Yeats, A Catalogue Raisonné of the Oil Paintings, Vol.I., Andre Deutsch, London, 1992, no.415, p.376, illustrated

The canvas has not been lined. A very minor area of craquleure to the blue pigment below the oar lower left. Otherwise the work appears to be in excellent overall condition with strong passages of impasto. UV light inspection reveals no evidence of any retouching or restoration. Held in a carved wooden frame.
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"The painter's vision has not to be translated into words; if he has seen his vision clearly and if his hand is sure, he can give us his vision as it came to him, and painting can reach as high as men can reach." Jack B. Yeats, Modern Aspects of Irish Art (1922)

Painted in 1930, Water Lilies is a major example of the bold expressive style Yeats had developed over the preceding years. In contrast to the more controlled nature of his oils from the early 1920s, which have a delineated structure to the composition, the present work is imbued with a natural spontaneity and fluidity. The colour is vivid and riotous, strong lines have been abandoned and free flowing impasto applied throughout.  It is a work that was executed at a time when Yeats was wholeheartedly embarking on a new language in paint, a leap of artistic self-discovery. James Stephens (1880-1950), the Irish poet and novelist, commented on this profound sea change in Yeats’s artistic style:

“Jack Yeats has sloughed his past as a snake sloughs his skin […] his painting today does not remind one, even distantly, of any painting that he ever did before; nor does it remind one of any painting whatever: It is young and fresh and daring.” (James Stephens; interview, The New York Times, 22 June 1930)

As was common for Yeats from the early 1930s onwards, the composition of Water Lilies is an imaginary one.  A man and woman sit languidly in a small rowing boat as it drifts across the water, their hands draped over the side brushing the water lilies as they pass. The painting has a lyrical and poetic tone that is also distinctly romantic and intimate. The couple are rendered in the same earthy tones of olive green, browns and copper red as the trees and bank that surround them and they are not necessarily discernible to the viewer at first glance. Yeats gives the impression that the figures are almost an extension, or indeed, continuation of the landscape itself, and invites the viewer to look deeper and fully immerse themselves in the painting. These earthy tones are contrasted with the intensely dazzling yellow of the sky which casts a gleaming reflection over the water and figures and is further punctuated with touches of red and deep blue. This use of primary colour is characteristic of Yeats’s work and its application became at times reckless as the bold colours would ‘inspire him to the laying on of whiplashes of paint, squeezed directly from the tube and then vigorously attacked at points with the palette-knife.’ (B. Arnold, Jack Yeats, Yale University Press, 1998, p.229)

Water Lilies shows Yeats in the formative stages of his new artistic journey in both colour and expression. From the late 1920s onwards he developed an almost unique style that has elevated his work to a significant artistic and cultural position, not just in Ireland, but also in a wider international context.