Jack B. Yeats

Jack Butler Yeats is one of the most important Irish artists of the XX century. He was born on August 29^th, 1871 in London, England. He was the youngest son of the artist, John Butler Yeats. His elder brother is the poet and laureate of the Nobel Prize William Yeats. His childhood he spent in County Sligo, Ireland. He studied in art school and then worked as a graphic, cartoonist, and illustrator. He lived in different cities of UK and Ireland. Since 1917, he with his family settled in Dublin where they remained for the rest of their lives.

He began to work regularly in oils in 1906. His early paintings share the realist approach of his graphic work and concentrate on scenes of rural and urban life. Before that he almost didn’t work in oil, preferring watercolor. In 1897, he had his first exhibition of watercolors

Since 1920, he began to work in Expressionism. He wanted to revive national Irish art. His favorite stories were the images of landscapes and genre scenes of Ireland, scenes of Celtic mythology. This change in his art style made his paintings more colorful and bright.

But after his wife’s death in 1947, his works became more somber and nostalgic. Jack B. Yeats died on March 28^th, 1957. Yeats’s personal archive is located in the National Gallery of Ireland and includes the artist’s sketchbooks which document over fifty years of his career.

Interesting fact about Yeats is that he was an Olympic winner. The painting was an Olympic category from 1912 to 1948. In 1924 he won a silver medal in this category bringing the first Olympic medal for Ireland.