WHYTE'S IMPORTANT IRISH ART MONDAY 27 MAY 2019 AT 6PM

37 Jack Butler Yeats RHA (1871- 1957) RABBITING ink signed upper right; original Dawson Gallery label on reverse 13.50 by 12in. (34.3 by 30.5cm) Provenance: Dawson Gallery, Dublin; Private collection; Whyte’s, 18 May 2009, lot 73; Private collection Both pencil and ink drawings (lots 37 & 38) were originally acquired from the Dawson Gallery. Each is inscribed on the back ‘Jack B. Yeats, Strete, N. Dartmouth, South Devon’, in the artist’s hand. Yeats lived in Strete between 1897 and 1910, after which he settled in Ireland permanently. During these 13 years Yeats was a prolific illustrator, producing images for the Dun Emer and Cuala Industries in Dublin as well as work for London based publishers. The medium and the technique of cross-hatching seen in the two drawings are typical of his working method at this time. The drawings were probably made as designs for printed illustrations but they do not appear to have been published. The subjects are of rural life, possibly of Devon rather than Ireland. After settling in the West Country of England Yeats became fascinated by local farming communities and his sketchbooks and watercolour paintings of the late 1890s are dominated by scenes of English rural life. From 1898 onwards Ireland becomes a more significant theme. The subject matter of both works refers to distinctive aspects of rural life, and possibly to the idea of different seasons. Rabbiting is a rather humorous image of a determined hunter looking for his prey while his dog stands guard. The latter appears to be modelled on Yeats’ own dog, ‘Hooley’ who features in many of the artist’s sketches of domestic life in Devon in these years. The subject recalls another untraced work which was exhibited in London in 1897 entitled ‘When ferrets lie up and when rabbits are plentiful’, which was subsequently reproduced but has not been traced (1). A print of the latter was sold through Whyte’s as lot 26, 29 November 2005. The dominant trunk of the tree which forms the background to the scene is very stylised and indebted to the current vogue for Art Nouveau which Yeats experimented with in his graphic work of the 1890s. Thatching in the Sun also focuses on a single individual. A thatcher at work on a rooftop is depicted in acute foreshortening which has the effect of flattening the thatch and the various tools strewn across it. The exaggerated awkwardness of the figure and the extreme perspective accentuate the primitive notions of the subject which could be either English or Irish in its origins. These drawings appear to date to an early period in the artist’s development as a black and white illustrator before he had fully developed a distinctive style and approach. Both show his knowledge of post-impressionist art and design and his skill at creating vibrant and complex images from very simple subject matter. Footnote: H. Pyle, Jack B. Yeats. His Watercolours, Drawings and Pastels , Irish Academic Press, 1993, nos. 46-7, p. 63 Dr. Róisín Kennedy, May 2009. €8,000-€12,000 (£6,900-£10,340 approx.) Click Here for Large Images & To Bid Lot 37