John Butler Yeats

(b Tullylish, Co. Down, 12 March 1839; d New York, 3 Feb 1922). Painter and draughtsman. He was the father of the poet W. B. Yeats and (2) Jack B. Yeats. In 1867, after studying law in Dublin, he moved to London, where he enrolled at Heatherley's Art School. He later worked under the supervision of Edward Poynter. For the first 20 years of his career Yeats produced illustrations and genre and landscape paintings: 'Pippa Passes' (1869-72; Dublin, N.G.), a large gouache, is distinctly Pre-Raphaelite. In the late 1880s he began to realize his gifts as a portrait painter, although his production was hampered by a lifelong inability to finish commissions on time. Over a period of 50 years he produced fewer than 100 oil paintings, his greatest output being pencil drawings. The best of these are of his family and friends. He was an admirer of George Frederick Watts and saw a similarity between Watts's approach to portrait painting and his own. In an essay on Watts written in 1906, Yeats wrote: 'the best portraits will be painted where the relationship of the sitter and the painter is one of friendship'. An example of this is his drawing of John M. Synge (1905; Dublin, N.G.). The portraits of his family are intimate and reflective, while those of his literary associates convey character and conviction. Yeats's interest in the modern school originated in his admiration for the tonal naturalism of James Abbott McNeill Whistler, while his understanding of Impressionism was gained through the writings of R. A. M. Stevenson (1847-1900). The drawings and oils of the turn of the century are in many ways the artist's most satisfying works.

Part of the Yeats family

See the Abbreviations for further details.

Yeats, John Butler (1839-1922), portrait-painter, the father of W. B. Yeats and Jack Butler Yeats. Born at Tullylish, Co. Down, where his father was Rector, he was educated at TCD. In 1863 he married Susan Pollexfen, sister of his school-friend George. In 1867 Yeats moved to London. In the 1870s and 1880s the family moved frequently between Dublin, London, and Howth, the children often staying in Sligo with the Pollexfens. After his wife died in 1900 he settled in Dublin with his daughters Susan (‘Lily’) and Elizabeth (‘Lollie’). Sir Hugh Lane commissioned him to paint a series of portraits of leading figures of the Irish literary revival, amongst them Synge, Moore, Lady Gregory, and Susan Mitchell. In 1908 he accompanied Lily to New York, where he made many new friends, including the lawyer John Quinn and Isadora Duncan. In New York he wrote essays and reviews (Essays Irish and American, 1918).

Portrait of Countess Constance Markiewicz, an Irish politician, revolutionary nationalist and suffragette; pencil drawing

John Butler Yeats (Born Tullylish, County Down, 16 March 1839, died 3 February 1922) was an Irish artist and the father of William Butler Yeats and Jack Butler Yeats. He is probably best known for his portrait of the young William Butler Yeats which is one of a number of his pictures in the Yeats museum in the National Gallery of Ireland. His portrait of John O'Leary (1904) is considered to be his masterpiece (Raymond Keaveney 2002).

Educated in Trinity College Dublin and a member of the University Philosophical Society John Butler Yeats began his career as a lawyer and devilled briefly with Isaac Butt before he took up painting in 1867 and studied at Hearthleys Art School. There are few records of his sales, so there is no catalogue of his work in private collections. It is possible that some of his early work may have been destroyed by fire in WWII. It is clear that he had no trouble getting commissions as his sketches and oils are found in private homes in Ireland, England and America. His later portraits show great sensitivity to the sitter. However, he was a poor businessman and was never financially secure. He moved house frequently and moved several times between England and Ireland. At the age of 69 he moved to New York, where he was friendly with members of the Ashcan School of painters. He is buried in Chestertown Rural Cemetery in Chestertown, New York.

External links and references

• Martyn Anglesea (2003), Yeats, John Butler in Brian Lalor (Ed.) The Encyclopedia of Ireland. Dublin: Gill and Macmillian. ISBN 0-7171-3000-2.
• Bruce Arnold (1977), Irish Art, a concise history. London: Thames and Hudson. ISBN 0-500-20148-X
• Raymond Keaveney (2002), National Gallery of Ireland, Essential Guide. London: Scala. ISBN 1-85759-267-0.
• Biographical note in the Princess Grace Irish Library
• William M. Murphy, Prodigal Father: The Life of John Butler Yeats, 1839-1922 published by Cornell University Press in 1978, paperback 1939, and reprinted in paperback with some new mnaterial in 2001 by Syracuse University Press.
• William M. Murphy (1995), Family Secrets: William Butler Yeats and His Relatives Syracuse University Press, 1995.
• William M. Murphy, "The Yeats Family and the Pollexfens of Sligo" (Dublin:Dolmen, 1971).
• William M. Murphy, ed., "The Drawings of John Butler Yeats." (Albany, New York: Abany Institute of History and Art, and Union College, Departments of Art and English), 1987.
• Ulster History Society - John Butler Yeats

See also

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Category:John Butler Yeats

• List of Northern Irish artists

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