WHYTE'S in association with CHRISTIE'S - The Ernie O'Malley Collection MONDAY 25 November 2019

THE ERNIE O’MALLEY COLLECTION · 25 NOVEMBER 2019 AT 6PM 53 55 THE ERNIE O’MALLEY COLLECTION 25 NOVEMBER 2019 AT 6PM United Arts Club on one particular evening, though details of the visit are lost to history. 5 The United Arts Club was an important meeting place for Ireland’s most forward-thinking cultural figures during the first-half of the twentieth century, its eclectic array of performances, lectures, exhibitions and discussions creating an incredibly stimulating environment which drew writers, poets, playwrights, artists, performers, and members of the city’s elite through its doors. Following his permanent move to Dublin, Yeats became an almost daily visitor to the club, and it was perhaps here, that the two artists came to know one another. By 1930, however, it seems indisputable that Yeats must have at least been aware of the Viennese painter’s work – in a review of the artist’s exhibition at the Alpine Club Gallery in London, the critic at The Spectator directly linked his latest canvases with the painterly style of Kokoschka, a comparison that must have driven Yeats to seek out examples of the artist’s work, if he was not already familiar with the man or his painting. Indeed, it is in their approach to paint that the clearest affinities between the two artists may be detected, from the freedom in their handling of the material, to the fluid, gestural quality of their brushwork, and the generous layering of pigment to create rich, dynamic, sensuous surfaces that seem to dance before the eye. Having said this, Yeats’ late paintings appear to push the boundaries of the expressive potential of painting to even further extremes than Kokoschka ever attempted. As Dr Yvonne Scott has written, ‘Yeats took the dissolution of form much further. While Kokoschka retained a strong compositional structure, Yeats was prepared to venture further from the primacy of form, and the structure of standard compositional devices, into the ‘no man’s land’ of apparent chaos.’ 6 Perhaps most importantly, though, it was in their deep appreciation of the human experience in all its complexities, their fascination with its inherent contradictions and the foibles of mankind, that the artists found their greatest common ground. From their letters, it is clear Kokoschka and Yeats shared a mutual respect and appreciation of one another’s art. It was an appreciation that remained with Kokoschka for a number of years, even following the Irishman’s death – in an article from Time Magazine dated April 1961, the artist responded to news of an exhibition of Yeats’ work at the Waddington Galleries by praising the Irish artist’s individualism, describing him as ‘an outsider who did not follow or belong to any school. All his work bears the mark of fantastic imagination and individuality.’ 7 When asked what he considered to be the best period of Yeats’ career, Kokoschka proclaimed ‘As long as he was alive.’ 8 Jennifer Duignam September 2019 1 Yeats, quoted in H. Pyle, Jack B. Yeats: A Catalogue Raisonné of the Oil Paintings, Vol. I, London, 1992, p. xxiv 2 Yeats, quoted in B. Arnold, Jack Yeats, New Haven & London, 1998, p. 227 3 See T. Snoddy, Dictionary of Irish Artists, 20th Century, Dublin, 1996, p. 567; for arguments against Olda Kokoschka’s account, so G. Tallarico, ‘A part of or apart? The possible influence of European Expressionism on Jack B. Yeats,’ in D. J. Foley, ed., The Only Art of Jack B. Yeats: Letters & Essays, Dublin, 2009, p. 105. 4 B. Arnold, op. cit., p. 220. 5 P. Boylan, All Cultivated People: A History of the United Arts Club, Dublin, Gerrards Cross, 1988, p. 141 6 Dr. Y Scott, ‘Chaos Theory’, in Y. Scott, ed., Jack B. Yeats: Old and New Departures, Dublin, 2008, pp. 93-94. 7 Kokoschka, quoted in T. Waddington & V. Waddington, eds., Jack B. Yeats: Amongst Friends, exh. cat., Cork, 2004, p. 18 8 Ibid Jack B. Yeats, The Islandbridge Regatta, 1925. © Estate of Jack B. Yeats. ( Image courtesy of The National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin). Oskar Kokoschka, Prague – Nostalgia, 1938. © Estate of Oskar Kokoschka. (Image courtesy of Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh).