Details
JACK BUTLER YEATS, R.H.A. (1871-1957)
O'Connell Bridge
signed 'JACK B YEATS' (lower left), inscribed 'O'CONNELL/BRIDGE' (on the reverse), 'inscribed again 'O'Connell Bridge' (on the stretcher)
oil on canvas
18 x 24 in. (45.7 x 61 cm.)
Painted in 1925.
Provenance
Acquired directly from the artist by Dr E. MacCarvill, Dublin, in 1945.
Anonymous sale; James Adam & Sons, Dublin, 10 July 1986, lot 59, where acquired by Cynthia O'Connor Gallery on behalf of the present collection.
Literature
H. Pyle, Jack B. Yeats: A Catalogue Raisonné of the Oil Paintings, Vol. I, London, 1992, p. 227, no. 253, illustrated.
H. Pyle, Jack B. Yeats: A Catalogue Raisonné of the Oil Paintings, Vol. III, London, 1992, p. 273, no. 253, illustrated.
T.G. Rosenthal, The Art of Jack B. Yeats, London, 1993, p. 75, p. 277, no. 28, illustrated.
K. Milligan, Painting Dublin: Visualising a Changing City, 1886-1949, Manchester, 2020, pp. 109-110.
Exhibited
London, Arthur Tooth & Sons, Pictures of Irish Life, March - April 1925, no. 17.
Dublin, Engineers' Hall, Jack Butler Yeats: Paintings, October 1925, no. 10.
Dublin, Royal Dublin Society Spring Show, Paintings and Sculpture by Irish Artists, May 1941.
Dublin, Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery of Modern Art, Yeats at the Municipal Gallery, 1959, no. 55.
London, Pyms Gallery, Irish Renascence: Irish Art in a Century of Change, November 1986, no. 32.
Dublin, Gorry Gallery, An Exhibition of 18th, 19th and 20th Century Irish Paintings, November - December 1988, no. 55.
Dublin, Royal Hibernian Academy, A Free Spirit: Irish Art 1860-1960, June - July 1990, pp. 71-72, fig. 56, ex. cat., illustrated.
Bristol, Arnolfini, Jack B. Yeats: The Late Paintings, February - March 1991, pp. 40-41, no. 3, illustrated: this exhibition travelled to London, Whitechapel Art Gallery, April - May 1991; and The Hague, Haags Gemeentemuseum, June - September 1991.
Manchester, City Art Galleries, Jack B. Yeats: A Celtic Visionary, March - April 1996, n.p., no. 5, illustrated: this exhibition travelled to Leeds, City Art Gallery, April - June 1996; Belfast, Ormeau Baths Gallery, June - July 1996.
Liverpool, Walker Art Gallery, When Time Began to Rant and Rage, October 1998 - December 1999, no. 28: this exhibition travelled to California, Berkeley Art Museum, February - May 1999; New York, Grey Art Gallery, May - July 1999.
Dublin, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Championing Irish Art: The Mary and Alan Hobart Collection, April - July 2023, p. 50, exhibition not numbered, illustrated.

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Elizabeth Comba
Elizabeth Comba Specialist

Lot Essay

Amid the ranks of passers-by, Jack Butler Yeats and his wife Cottie, a few steps behind him, cross O’Connell Bridge in the early evening. Flanked by the softly illuminated shopfronts along the quays, with pin-pricks of light indicating the streetlamps have been lit, the river Liffey is painted in ribbons of deep indigo blue, shaping Dublin with its rushing waters as it carves through the centre of the city. Linking the two banks, O’Connell Bridge forms part of the rich tapestry of Dublin’s history. From the myriad bridges that span its waters and the traffic along the quays, to the newsboys and street-sellers hawking their wares and the throngs of people that navigate its length, Yeats was captivated by the play of life that surrounded the river. O’Connell Bridge places the viewer at the very heart of the city, immersed in the rhythm of Dubliners as they go about their daily lives.

Looking upstream towards the nearby Ha’penny Bridge, Yeats presents a dramatic vision of the river, allowing the profiles of the buildings that line the waterway to emphasise the sharp recession of the Liffey, as it stretches into the distance. With glimpses of liquid yellow and white, Yeats models the cast of characters on the bridge in deft strokes of pigment, woven together to fill the painting with emotion - in the figures’ individual expressions as well as in the cool evening breeze. While the artist’s face is cast largely in shadow, Cottie’s is bathed in golden light, the evening sun catching her features as she directs her gaze to the viewer.

The inclusion of the artist himself coincides with an increasingly personal and emotional style of painting in the mid-1920s. At a pivotal moment for Yeats’ artistic expression, O’Connell Bridge embodies a new sophistication in the artist’s painterly technique at this time. While retaining the precise outlines of his early work, Yeats began to embrace a more fluid and immediate application of his pigments - describing his scenes in a distinctly modern manner with free, vigorous brushstrokes and an increasingly vivid palette.

In many ways, O’Connell Bridge recalls one of Yeats’ best-known works of this period, The Liffey Swim, which won a silver medal in the painting competition at the Paris Olympics in 1924. Achieved at an intense moment of celebration, this was the first Olympic medal that Ireland had won following Independence. Quickly acquired for the collection of the National Gallery of Ireland in 1931, this work depicts the moment the city comes to a standstill as crowds of spectators throng the quaysides and bridges in order to watch the annual swimming race from Victoria Quay in the Liberties, to Burgh Quay.

From the earliest stages of his career, Yeats had been fascinated by urban life. Following his move to Ireland, Dublin became his primary source for these subjects. Making his way from his home in Donnybrook, Yeats would wander through the city centre with a sketchbook in hand, filling the pages with rapid drawings and annotations of all he encountered. In a profile of the artist printed in The Irish Times in 1928, Yeats was described ‘dressed in his unfailing Donegal tweeds, with a carnation in his coat lapel. Sometimes, the artist strides forward at a rapid pace, unconscious probably of the onlookers, but keenly alive to his surroundings’ (quoted in K. Milligan, Painting Dublin: Visualising a Changing City, 1886-1949, Manchester, 2020, p. 96). In O’Connell Bridge, Yeats depicts his own subjective experience of the city - these were the streets he traversed, the people he encountered, the views he glimpsed, as he ambled through Dublin.

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