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JACK BUTLER YEATS RHA (1871 - 1957)
Top of the Fall (1945)
Oil on Board, 23 x 35cm (9 x 13¼”)
Signed
Exhibited: “Jack B Yeats Exhibition” Sligo County Museum and Art Gallery, Aug - Sept 1989,
Catalogue No. 43
Literature: “Jack B Yeats - A Catalogue Raisonne of the Oil Paintings” by Hilary Pyle, Catalogue No. 680,
page 617 (Vol II)
Hilary Pyle has identified the setting of
The Top of the Fall
as Glencar Waterfall, north of Sligo town. Glencar
appears in several of Jack Yeats’s paintings, most notably as the dramatic backdrop to
In Memory of Bouci-
cault and Bianconi,
(1937, National Gallery of Ireland). It also features in a number of pure landscapes such
as
Glencar, Co. Sligo
, (1949, Private Collection).
Glencar Waterfall is a famous landmark in the Sligo area. It flows into the lake of Glencar, passing through
‘fields of wild garlic and rhododendrons and tall trees’.* The serenity of the lake and the surrounding
countryside dominate this painting. Strong yellows and blues evoke the lush late summer vegetation. Ex-
posed to the sky, the spindly forms of the trees, sway in the breeze. Their proximity offsets the dramatic
expanse of space behind where sky, mountains and water blend. Pale blues and whites convey this light-
filled vista, which is surveyed from the height of the waterfall.
The view was painted from memory and is one of a number of works of the 1940s in which Yeats revisited
Sligo in his imagination. He was drawn to places that dominated his childhood. Glencar Lake with its
crannogs and steep waterfall was a place of magic and joy to the Yeats siblings when they visited their
grandparents in Sligo in the 1870s and 1880s. But rather than dwell on its mysterious aspects, this work
subtly conveys the sense of vibrancy and possibility that the location evoked in Yeats’s mind, suggested by
the breadth and abundance of its terrain.
*Hilary Pyle, Jack B. Yeats. A Biography, 1970.
Dr Roisin Kennedy, November 2015.
€ 25,000 - 35,000