24 by 36in. (61 by 91.4cm)

Title: THE ENFOLDING NIGHT, 1947
Note: Three figures walk through a barren landscape towards an intense light. A fourth figure, that of an old man, is seated in the foreground. Hilary Pyle states that this may represent the artist, foreseeing his own death. (1) The painting is one of several existential subjects that Yeats painted in the late 1940s, as he approached his eightieth birthday. These include The Night has Gone (1947, Private Collection), Men of the Plain (1947, Private Collection) and most notably The Great Tent has Collapsed, (1947, Private Collection). The latter was bought by Helen Hooker O’Malley in 1947 and later presented to the Irish American Cultural Institute in memory of Ernie O’Malley. The ghostly procession of figures in The Enfolding Night is ethereal, as if constructed out of light. The silhouettes are tenuously formed out of strokes of thick white paint, enriched with touches of yellow, pink and blue. Despite their nebulous form, the figures are individualised. Their poses dramatically convey their responses to the celestial light towards which they walk. The child runs with open arms, the woman stares heavenward, while their companion, a man in a hat, glances back towards the seated figure. This is a very theatrical composition, added to by the dramatic contrasts in light and shade and the sparsity of the setting. Like a scene from a theatre play it is full of movement and different physical levels while retaining an aura of composure. Ernie O’Malley bought this painting from Victor Waddington, Yeats’ gallerist, in 1948. It was not exhibited publicly until 1961. Dr Roisín Kennedy September 2019 1. Hilary Pyle, Jack B. Yeats. A Catalogue Raisonné of the Oil Paintings, Andre Deutsch, 1992, II, p.787.

oil on canvas

signed lower left