Jack B. Yeats The Outsider / The Model 6th Feb – 5th June 2011
This exciting exhibition brings together forty Jack B Yeats oils from a variety of public and private collections. Many of the works included have been rarely exhibited in Ireland in the past fifty years while others have never been shown publicly before.
Curated by the internationally acclaimed artist, critic and theorist, Brian O’Doherty (aka Patrick Ireland), and Emer McGarry, Curator of The Niland Collection, the show will concentrate on the arc of Yeats artistic practice from his early realistic works to the wildly romantic and apocalyptic visions of his later years. The show will feature work spanning a sixty-year period, from an early Sligo scene completed in 1895, to one of Yeats final works, completed in 1956 the year before he died.
The show will present a great opportunity for audiences to see the two previously unseen paintings from the estate of the late author Graham Greene, which were recently sold by Christie’s of London. The works A Horseman Enters a Town at Night, 1948 and Man in a Room Thinking, 1947, were purchased by a private collector, who has very generously made them available to The Model for the duration of The Outsider.
A Horseman Enters a Town at Night, 1948 is a beautiful, dark painting, with flashes of vermillion and cadmium yellow. This previously unseen work is considered to be one of Yeats’ masterpieces and visitors to The Model will have a unique opportunity to see it.
Another work of particular note is Paper Bags for Hats, 1925, which was once in the possession of Ernie O’Malley, the early twentieth century writer and revolutionary. This playful work, which portrays Dublin street sellers protecting themselves from the rain by placing paper bags on their heads, reveals Yeats abiding interest in those who lived their lives on the fringes of society. This work has not been seen in Ireland since an exhibition held here in Sligo in 1963 curated by Nora Niland, founder of the Niland Collection.
The Model is delighted to be in a position to bring some of Yeats greatest works back to his hometown of Sligo in a colourful and vibrant celebration of his life’s work.
The show will be accompanied by a new publication with a major new critical text by Brian O’Doherty,as well as new texts by Dr. Tricia Cusack and Dr. Thomas McEvilley
Kindly supported by the PEACE III Programme, managed for the Special EU Programmes Body by Sligo County Council on behalf of Sligo Peace & Reconciliation Partnership Committee.
