John Butler Yeats

John Butler Yeats’ career as an artist began in the 1860s when he left a promising career in law. In 1867, he left Dublin for London, taking his two young children, Willie (William Butler Yeats) and Lily (Susan Mary Yeats) with him, and enrolled at Heatherley School of Art. His early career is marked by a pre-Raphaelite influence and he much admired the work of Dante Gabriel Rossetti.

In the early 1870s he studied at the Slade School of Art under Edward Poynter and found his strength in portraiture. He admired the work of George Frederick Watts, notably his Hall of Fame series depicting celebrated Victorians of the period which influenced commission from Hugh Lane in 1903 to paint Ireland’s most prominent cultural figures, now largely housed in the National Gallery of Ireland.

Yeats wrote that ‘The best portraits will be painted where the relation of the sitter and the painter is one of friendship’. His pencil sketches of his family and friends have a great sensitivity and familiarity to them and it is with the pencil that he was at his best.

Yeats returned to Dublin from London. By his early sixties, he had finally risen to prominence, chiefly through the success of his shared exhibition with Nathaniel Hone organised by Sarah Purser in 1901 and through the Hugh Lane commission. He was a pivotal figure in the artistic and intellectual life of the city. By this time, his children were establishing themselves within Dublin cultural life , Willie through his poetry and the Abbey Theatre, Lily and Lolly through Dun Emer and later Cuala Press and Jack through his illustrations and paintings. In 1907, when the opportunity to travel to New York emerged Yeats moved across the Atlantic where he spent the last fourteen years of his life.

Additional Information
National Gallery Ireland
Britannica