Jack Butler Yeats RHA (1871-1957)

The Well (1921)

Oil on panel, 23 x 35.5cm (9 x 14")

Signed

 

Exhibited:

- '2nd Annual Exhibition', The Society of Dublin Painters, April 1921

- 'Jack B...

Jack Butler Yeats RHA (1871-1957)

The Well (1921)

Oil on panel, 23 x 35.5cm (9 x 14")

Signed

 

Exhibited:

- '2nd Annual Exhibition', The Society of Dublin Painters, April 1921

- 'Jack B Yeats Exhibition, Paintings of Irish Life' Gieves Art Gallery London 7th-18th January 1924, Cat No 33.

- '9th Annual Exhibition' The Society of Independent Artists, New York, 1925

- 'Jack B Yeats Exhibition' Victor Waddington Galleries, London, 8th-31st March 1973, Cat No. 2

 

Literature: Hilary Pyle 'Jack B Yeats' - A catalogue raisonné of the oil paintings, London, 1992, p.130 Cat No.149, illustrated.

 

The period around which this work was painted was one of increased output and strength of subject matter. Yeats' major works of this period include "Singing the Dark Rosaleen", "A Westerly Wind", "The Circus" and "The Island Funeral".

 

In 1921, the year of the present work, Yeats was travelling about the West of Ireland and in particular Co. Galway and Co. Sligo which in all likelyhood is the location for the well.

 

Hilary Pyle has written:

A young girl with bare feet has come along a hilly path through a gap in the stone wall from the cottage seen on the brow of the slope in the background. She stands on a large stone to the right of the painting, about to let a tin can down into the water. The scene is a simple one, the rocky ground with its weedy vegetation, and the broken light of a typical Irish day, described realistically; yet the ritualistic pose and gesture of the girl seem to anticipate the metaphorical paintings of the 1940s with their theme of water and its spiritual significance.

 

 

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