30
Jack Butler Yeats RHA (1871-1957)
Estimate:
€500,000 - €700,000
Sold
€1,300,000
Live Auction
The Ernie O'Malley Collection in association with Christie's
Size
24 by 36in. (61 by 91.4cm)
Description
Title: EVENING IN SPRING, 1937
Note: We are grateful to Christina Kennedy and Johanne Mullan of IMMA for their assistance with this work. Evening in Spring may have been inspired by a memory of a Yeats family dinner in Sligo, according to Hilary Pyle.1 A group of figures sit around a formal dining table with two servants standing behind them. The centre of the table is decorated by a large bowl of bright yellow daffodils which evoke the notion of spring and bring touches of vivid colour into the foreground of the composition. The large window gives a panoramic view of the open countryside beyond. Its expansive greenery, with distant mountains and the rich red of evening light provides a poignant counterpart to the relative darkness and congestion of the dining room. This is one of Yeats’ most memorable and evocative paintings. It conjures up a feeling of nostalgia in the viewer through the richness of its colour and the vivacity of its brushstrokes. The room seems to vibrate with reflected light, its white ceiling transformed by flecks of colours. The wall on the left hand side looks as if it is dissolving into a cacophony of reds, blues, yellows and greens. Its conservative old-fashioned maroon décor is transformed into a moving sinuous substance. The figures appear oblivious to the allure of their surroundings, engrossed as they are in the formality of social interaction. At one level, however, the opening up of the background could be interpreted as indicative of their imaginations and their conversations rather than a literal depiction of the view. Ernie O’Malley bought this painting from Jack B. Yeats in 1945 and lent it anonymously to the National Loan Exhibition. It had already been included in Yeats’ exhibition at the National Gallery of London, curated by Kenneth Clark, in 1942. The work was singled out in at least one review which praised the ‘tranquil and intimate’ feeling that it conveyed through its harmony of colour. (2) Dr Róisín Kennedy September 2019 1.Hilary Pyle, Jack B. Yeats. A Catalogue Raisonné of the Oil Paintings, Andre Deutsch, 1992. I, p.449. 2. ‘London Letter’, Belfast Newsletter, 2 January 1942, p. 4.
Note: We are grateful to Christina Kennedy and Johanne Mullan of IMMA for their assistance with this work. Evening in Spring may have been inspired by a memory of a Yeats family dinner in Sligo, according to Hilary Pyle.1 A group of figures sit around a formal dining table with two servants standing behind them. The centre of the table is decorated by a large bowl of bright yellow daffodils which evoke the notion of spring and bring touches of vivid colour into the foreground of the composition. The large window gives a panoramic view of the open countryside beyond. Its expansive greenery, with distant mountains and the rich red of evening light provides a poignant counterpart to the relative darkness and congestion of the dining room. This is one of Yeats’ most memorable and evocative paintings. It conjures up a feeling of nostalgia in the viewer through the richness of its colour and the vivacity of its brushstrokes. The room seems to vibrate with reflected light, its white ceiling transformed by flecks of colours. The wall on the left hand side looks as if it is dissolving into a cacophony of reds, blues, yellows and greens. Its conservative old-fashioned maroon décor is transformed into a moving sinuous substance. The figures appear oblivious to the allure of their surroundings, engrossed as they are in the formality of social interaction. At one level, however, the opening up of the background could be interpreted as indicative of their imaginations and their conversations rather than a literal depiction of the view. Ernie O’Malley bought this painting from Jack B. Yeats in 1945 and lent it anonymously to the National Loan Exhibition. It had already been included in Yeats’ exhibition at the National Gallery of London, curated by Kenneth Clark, in 1942. The work was singled out in at least one review which praised the ‘tranquil and intimate’ feeling that it conveyed through its harmony of colour. (2) Dr Róisín Kennedy September 2019 1.Hilary Pyle, Jack B. Yeats. A Catalogue Raisonné of the Oil Paintings, Andre Deutsch, 1992. I, p.449. 2. ‘London Letter’, Belfast Newsletter, 2 January 1942, p. 4.
Medium
oil on canvas
Signature
signed lower right; titled on reverse
Provenance
Purchased directly from the artist by Ernie O'Malley, 1945;
Thence by family descent
Literature
Hilary Pyle, Jack B. Yeats: A Catalogue Raisonné of the Oil Paintings, Andre Deutsch, London, 1992, Vol. II, page 449, catalogue no. 494
Exhibited
RHA, Dublin, 1937, catalogue no. 127;
Contemporary Art Society, London, June 1938;
‘National Society of Painters etc. 10th Annual Exhibition’, Royal Institute Galleries, London, February 1939;
‘Nicholson & Yeats’, National Gallery, London, January 1942, catalogue no. 16;
‘National Loan Exhibition’, National College of Art, Dublin, June to July 1945;
‘Loan Exhibition’, Institute of Technology, Hayden Gallery, Massachusetts, 11 January to 17 February 1965, catalogue no. 38 (illustrated);
‘Jack Yeats: Irish Expressionist’, Museum of Art, Birmingham, Alabama, 15 March to 30 April 1980, catalogue no. 34 (illustrated);
‘Jack B. Yeats: The Late Paintings’, Arnolfini Gallery, Bristol, 16 February to 24 March 1991 and afterwards at Whitechapel Art Gallery, London, 5 April to 26 May 1991, also at the Haags Gemeentemuseum, The Hague, 21 June to 15 September 1991, catalogue no. 10 (illustrated);
‘Freud Project - Life above Everything - Lucian Freud and Jack B. Yeats’, Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA), 28 June 2019 to 30 September 201, catalogue no. 99 (illustrated pp.52-53). The project, with some changes to the exhibited works, continues at IMMA until 2021
