WHYTE'S IRISH & INTERNATIONAL ART MONDAY 1 OCTOBER 2018 AT 6PM

15 Jack Butler Yeats RHA (1871-1957) PILOT SLIGO RIVER / PÍOLÓTA ABHANN SLIGEACH, 1927 oil on canvas signed lower left; titled in the artist’s hand in Irish and English on canvas on reverse; titled on Dawson Gallery label also preserved on reverse 18 by 24in. (45.7 by 61cm) Provenance: Sold by the artist through Leo Smith to Mrs A.V. Ryan, c.1942; Private collection Exhibited: ‘Paintings’, Engineer’s Hall, Dublin, 25 February o 5 March, 1927, no. 24; ’Paintings’, Alpine Club Gallery, London, 6-23 February 1929, no. 5; Oireachtas, Dublin, 1941 Literature: Hilary Pyle, Jack B. Yeats: A Catalogue Raisonné of the Oil Paintings, Andre Deutsch, London, 1992, Vol. I, page 311, catalogue no. 343 The pilot is a recurring figure in the work of Jack Yeats, always appearing as in Pilot, Sligo River, bearded in a peaked cap, and dark double breasted, marine style jacket. Hilary Pyle suggests that the figure of the pilot is based on Michel Gillen, who worked at Rosses Point when Yeats was a child living with his grandparents in Sligo. Gillen’s job was to guide merchant ships from Rosses Point along the Garavogue River to the quayside in Sligo town, a journey of about five miles. Yeats’ grandfather, William Pollexfen owned a large merchant shipping business that enabled his young grandson to travel frequently with the pilot on his journeys. The Yeats children were also regular guests at Elsinore, the summer home of their cousin, Henry Middleton, at Rosses Point, where they also encountered the pilot. The pilot became a figure of mythological dimensions. His job required great skill in navigation and sailing as well as a deep knowledge and understanding of the geography and conditions of the Garavogue and its environs. He appears in several of Yeats’ drawings and paintings, often in or near the Pilot House, a look-out hut, which was located on the headland at Rosses Point, and from where he could watch for the arrival of ships into the river mouth. The remains of the hut survive today, close to the ruins of Elsinore. The exotic nature of the pilot was added to by the fact that he was often accompanied by a fiddle player in his boat and by his stories of seafaring escapades. He came to encapsulate the spirit of adventure that all mariners possessed in the imagination of Yeats. Yeats included a depiction of ‘The River Pilot’ in a series of little watercolours that he made of the men working on the Sligo quays in 1900 (Niland Collection, The Model, Sligo). An illustration of ‘The Pilot’ featured in A Broadside (April 1910) which shows the sailor standing in his rowing boat and engaging in conversation with the bearded captain of a merchant ship. This formed the basis of his 1925 oil painting, The Captain Goes Aboard, 1925 (Private Collection). (The original watercolour for this is now in the collection of the National Gallery of Ireland, NGI 3826). A drawing of ‘The Pilot’ is also included in Yeats’ book, Life in the West of Ireland (1912), depicting the figure standing on the headland at Rosses Point beside the Pilot House.