Jack Butler Yeats RHA (1871-1957) My River (1950) Oil on board, 35.5 x 46cm (14 x 18'') Signed, inscribed with title verso Provenance: Previously in the collection of Mr. and Mrs. H. Merkin, New...

Jack Butler Yeats RHA (1871-1957) My River (1950) Oil on board, 35.5 x 46cm (14 x 18'') Signed, inscribed with title verso Provenance: Previously in the collection of Mr. and Mrs. H. Merkin, New York Exhibited: 1951 Dublin, ''Jack B. Yeats Exhibition'', The Victor Waddington Galleries, Catalogue No. 1 Literature: ''Jack B. Yeats - A Catalogue Raisonne of the Oil Paintings'' by Hilary Pyle, London 1992, Catalogue No. 1017 The river in the title is Drumcliffe River which enters the sea north of Sligo town as part of a complex series of estuaries. Sharing its name with the village of Drumcliff the river had great personal significance for Jack Yeats. It features in another late painting, Low Tide, the Drumcliffe River making its way to the sea, 1954 (Private Collection) and Yeats's last workbook contains a sketch of it. The artist's great grandfather had once been minister of the church of Drumcliff, while Jack had spent his childhood years with his maternal grandparents in nearby Sligo. More recently in 1948 the body of W.B. Yeats was re-interred in the cemetery at Drumcliff, a poignant event for his younger brother. In this painting the river - a deep blue meandering element in the left foreground - makes its way towards the ocean and becomes blended with the surrounding waters and rivers. Ben Bulben forms a dramatic backdrop to the scene, its cliff-like side silhouetted against a glowing sun. The reflected light is depicted in the golden flecks of colour on the shoreline and on the white waves in the right foreground which mirror the powerful chromatic effects of the sky. The small scale and light tonalities of My River is found in other works of this late period and like many of these the painting pays homage to Yeats's deep attachment to Sligo. Filled with life and movement the landscape also acts as an analogy for human endeavour, painted by an artist who continued to develop his practice into old age. He was almost eighty when he completed this work. Dr. Roisin Kennedy Dublin August 2012 1. H. Pyle, Jack. B. Yeats, III, p. 1062.

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