W. B. Yeats

Artist Sarah Henrietta Purser (1848 - 1943)

Datec. 1904

MediumPastel on paper

Dimensions43 x 25.4 cm

ClassificationsPastels

Credit LineCollection & image © Hugh Lane Gallery. Donated by the Friends of the National Collections of Ireland, 1944.

Object number926

DescriptionWilliam Butler Yeats (1865 – 1939) came from one of the most artistic families in Ireland and won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1923. Born in Dublin, to a middle-class Protestant family, he was the son of the artist John B. Yeats and brother of the painter Jack B. Yeats. As a youngster he spent many summers visiting family in Sligo and the west of Ireland was a significant source of inspiration for him. Yeats had a visual art education but devoted his life to literature and writing developing a keen interest in native Irish literature and tradition. Yeats was a nationalist and led the Irish Literary Revival, a movement of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries which provoked a renewed enthusiasm for new and traditional Irish literature. In 1904 together with Lady Gregory he founded the Abbey Theatre to stage Irish plays. However, towards the end of his life Yeats became disillusioned by the narrow-mindedness of those who wanted to promote Irish cultural identity as Catholic and nationalist. In addition many of these people were adverse to any art which depicted the harsh realities of Irish rural life. Yeats felt it was important for Ireland to open itself up to external European influences and modernism in its search for a new Irish identity. Sarah Purser played a pivotal role in the life of the Municipal Art Gallery. It was the exhibition she organised of work by John Butler Yeats and Nathaniel Hone in 1901 that inspired Hugh Lane to establish a gallery of modern art. It was also her suggestion that Charlemont House would be a suitable location to house the collection and following the completion of a purpose-built extension, it became the permanent home for the Municipal Art Gallery in 1933. Her lasting legacy is the founding of the Friends of the National Collections of Ireland, which has resulted in many significant artworks entering the collection. (JO'D)

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