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Jack Butler Yeats RHA (1871-1957)
LookingDown on theOldRacecourse of Bowmore, Sligo(1944)
Oil on panel, 22.8 x 35.6cm (9 x 14”)
Signed, inscribed with title in the artist’s hand verso
Provenance: Victor Waddington Galleries, where purcahsed by R.N.
Flynn 1945. Sold later at Sotheby’s London, 22nd June 1994, Lot 93
Literature: Hilary Pyle,
Jack B. Yeats: A Catalogue Raisonné of the Oil
Paintings,
London 1992, Vol II p598, Cat. No. 654
Bowmore is one of the race tracks situated next to the strand at Rosses
Point, Co. Sligo which Yeats frequented as a very young man in the 1880s
and 1890s. It was at that time part of the Middleton estate and thus
belonged to the artist’s maternal relations. His favourite uncle, George
Pollexfen was one of the stewards of the race meetings there at the time.
In 1898 the racecourse moved to the neighbouring Hazelwood location
and in 1941 races at Rosses Point ended altogether.
In this work Yeats, as in other late paintings, revisits the sights of his
youth. !e %at open terrain of the course seems to continue on into the
expanse of sea and sky beyond.!e vertical posts of the old track are still
intact and clearly visible, remnants of a now vanished past. In a sense
they take the place of &gures appearing as anthropomorphic elements,
witnesses to the great triumphs and disappointments of a bygone era.
For Yeats, as in this evocative painting, the landscape is always a setting
for human action. Here the vivacious colours and the rich textures of
the paint surface convey the longevity of nature and its power to stir up
memories of the past.
Dr. Roisin Kennedy
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