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Jack Butler Yeats RHA (1871-1957) FORGIVE HIM, 19

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Jack Butler Yeats RHA (1871-1957) FORGIVE HIM, 19

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Auction Date:2005 Apr 26 @ 18:00 (UTC+00:00 : GMT)
Location:Dublin, Ireland
Jack Butler Yeats RHA (1871-1957) FORGIVE HIM, 1953<BR>signed lower right; with original exhibition labels on reverse<BR>oil on canvas<BR>51 by 69cm., 20 by 27in.<BR><BR>Provenance:<BR>Victor Waddington, London;<BR>Private collection;<BR>James Adam Salesrooms, Dublin, 11 December 1986, lot 70;<BR>Phillips, London, 13 September 1990, lot 86;<BR>Waddington Galleries, London;<BR>Jefferson Smurfit Group Collection;<BR>Sotheby’s, London, 17 November 2004, lot 154;<BR>Private collection, Dublin<BR><BR>Exhibited:<BR>‘Jack B. Yeats: Oil Paintings’, Waddington Galleries, Dublin, February 1955, catalogue no. 17;<BR>Munster Fine Art Club, Cork, 1956;<BR>‘Jack B. Yeats: Oil Paintings’, Willard Gallery, New York, 6-31 March 1962, catalogue no. 19;<BR>‘Jack B. Yeats: Oil Paintings’, Victor Waddington Gallery, London, 8-31 March 1973, catalogue no. 23 (reproduced in colour in catalogue);<BR>‘Jack B. Yeats’: A Celtic Visionary’, Manchester City Art Gallery, 9 March – 21 April 1996; Leeds City Art Gallery, 27 April – 2 June 1996;<BR>Ormeau Baths Gallery, Belfast, 7 June – 6 September 1996, catalogue no. 27 (reproduced in colour in catalogue)<BR><BR>Literature:<BR>Hilary Pyle, Jack B. Yeats: A Catalogue Raisonné of the Oil Paintings, Andre Deutsche, London, 1992, catalogue no. 1156, Vol. II, page 1056, illustrated also in Vol. III, page 580<BR><BR>Colour sustained Jack Yeats in his final years. Though there is some unevenness, it is least evident when colour dominates. The output itself remains prodigious. It is extraordinary that from the beginning of the 1950s until he finally laid down his brushes and stopped working, in 1955, he painted almost 200 canvases. Among these, and dating from the same year, was My Beautiful, My Beautiful!, the second or third largest canvas the artist ever painted. The two pictures were first exhibited in the same show in Dublin in 1955, numbered 17 and 10.<BR><BR>The sense of drama and action is to the forefront in both works. In My Beautiful, My Beautiful! Yeats returns to his first love as an artist, which was horses, on this occasion not racing but the more sentimental feelings of the owner of an Arab steed forced to part with it, and deciding to free it instead of letting it fall into another owner’s hands. In Forgive Him the other love of Yeats’s life, for theatre, performance and entertainment, comes to the fore.<BR><BR>Once again, the radiance of the artist’s palette, his brilliant use of blues and yellows, his technique of coming in close on his subject, work dramatically. The scene is of a highly dramatic figure, that of a highwayman, striding onto a stage in a crowded theatre. He is shown against the audience in the foreground, and the effect is to create tension and interest.<BR><BR>It would be wrong to see this as triumphant in terms of Yeats himself. His inner soul was satisfied with what he did in these final years, but he did it in isolation, in the spirit of his mind. He was largely neglected as an artist at the end. He relied on his friends. His wife had died in 1947 and he was preparing to go himself. Not surprising at 82. What surprises is the vigour and command of his work. It was initially owned by his dealer, Victor Waddington, passing through other collections later.<BR><BR>Bruce Arnold,<BR>Author of Jack Yeats, Yale University Press, 1998<BR>Dublin, March 2005<BR>