William Butler Yeats

Artist John Butler Yeats (1839 - 1922)

Datec. 1886

MediumOil on canvas

Dimensions76.6 x 64 cm

ClassificationsPaintings

Credit LineCollection & image © Hugh Lane Gallery. Lane Gift, 1912.

Object number55

DescriptionJohn Butler Yeats read Classics, Metaphysics and Logic at Trinity College Dublin graduating in 1862. The following year he married Susan Pollexfen, the sister of his school friend George Pollexfen. Although called to the Bar in 1866, he moved to London with his family in 1867 to pursue a career as an artist. While portraiture was generally a lucrative genre, thereafter, a life of financial uncertainly followed. In 1901 Sarah Purser (1848 - 1943) organised a groundbreaking exhibition in Dublin of his work and that of Nathaniel Hone leading Hugh Lane to commission a somewhat reluctant Yeats to paint a series of portraits of distinguished Irishmen. The New York lawyer and collector John Quinn, an important supporter of Yeats when he moved to New York in 1907, also purchased a number of portraits from the exhibition. This painting of his son who was, at this time, an emerging poet, demonstrates Yeats's widely praised sensitivity in characterisation. W.B. Yeats (1865-1939), shown here in youthful reflection, had attended the Metropolitan School of Art as his father believed an art education provided a valuable foundation for life. He was also a vocal supporter of Hugh Lane and composed a number of poems including September 1913 and The Municipal Gallery Revisited which were inspired by Lane's efforts to establish a gallery of modern art, as well as the collection itself.

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