Adam's IMPORTANT IRISH ART 25th September 2024

58 42 JACK BUTLER YEATS RHA (1871-1957) The Corner of the Square (1947) Oil on board, 23 x 35.5cm (9 x14”) Signed Provenance: Sold by the artist to Mrs Mabel Spiro, later Mrs Waddington, October 1947; Private collection, London; Theo Wadding- ton, London; Private collection, Brussels, 1978, thence by descent to the present owner. Exhibited: London, Victor Wad- dington, ‘ Paintings ’, April/May This late urban landscape depicts the park in the centre of Fit- zwilliam Square, Dublin. Jack B. Yeats lived in a flat in the house on the south east corner of the square from 1929 until shortly before his death in 1957. His studio was also located in this flat and he spent much of his later years in this vicinity. Unlike his other paintings of this location such as Morning in the City (1937, National Gallery of Ireland) or Little Sister of the Gang (1944, Private Collection), this is a pure landscape without fig- ures. It focuses on the agitated forms of the trees in the square confined by the metal railings that surround them. To the right the dark imposing shadow of the Georgian terrace closes off the composition with railings and foliage of a window box sounding an organic and mysterious note. A pink tinge in the sky on the extreme right suggests that this is very early morning when the streets are still deserted, and nature dominates. The sky is tur- bulent with a mass of dark swirls crossing from the right, and thick white clouds painted in impasto prominent elsewhere. Parts of the sky have been scraped back to reveal the horizontal lines of the board support, typical of Yeats’s later work. Else- where such as in the railings of the park, vertical lines have been scraped into the surface of the paint, drawing attention to the physical construction of the painting. The branches of the trees are made of thick yellow and green pigment and the swirling marks of the paintbrush are clearly evident here creating an in- tense sense of movement as the boughs sway in the breeze. The foreground, the broad roadway and pavement, is made of fluid paintwork adding to the sense of movement and making the city appear more like an exotic landscape than a quiet Georgian square with its private park in the centre of Dublin. Dr Róisín Kennedy August 2024 1971, no.20, (col. repro); London, Theo Waddington, ‘ Oil Painting s’, Oct/Nov 1978, no.14 (repro) Literature: Hilary Pyle, Jack B. Yeats, A Catalogue Raisonné of the Oil Paintings , London, 1992, no.840, illustrated p.757 € 40,000 - 60,000