20
Young ladies whose parents could pay the fees formed the majority of day students and in
fact in existing records of the composition of the school’s employees, students and members
between 1911 and 1950, women were always in the majority, often by narrow margins but
still they outnumbered the men
5
. Harry Clarke, who met his artist wife Margaret (1888-
1961) at the school, described the situation as it was seen at the time: “Serious students
of this period would joke about the daughters of wealthy Dubliners who would come in
during the day to amuse themselves and dabble in arty crafty pursuits, while the worthy
but impoverished night students would slave away in the hopes of winning scholarships. A
favourite trick was to pile up the chairs at night so that the ladies would have nowhere to sit.
Certainly the contemporary fashion for arts and crafts contributed to this female influx”
6
.
As Clarke noted, Irish women artists of the time were not just painters but practised in an array
of media encompassing engraving, lithography, poster design, metalwork and enamelling.
The Arts and Crafts movement underwent a revival in Ireland in the late 19th and early 20th
centuries, in line with other countries in Europe and America. It had become more acceptable
for women to practise these crafts in guilds, mainly working and exhibiting anonymously, and
contributing to the surge of nationalism based on cultural revival in Ireland. However, Lily
Yeats was an exception to the ‘anonymous crafter’ and became known for her embroideries
such as
The GPO
and
Foxgloves by a stile
, which she mainly exhibited through the Arts and
Crafts Society of Ireland (established in 1894)
7
. After attending the Metropolitan School of
Art, Lily Yeats was employed in William Morris’s workshops from 1888 to 1894. With her
sister Elizabeth (“Lolly”) and Evelyn Gleeson, she set up the Dun Emer guild in 1902, a craft
collective formed under the medieval guild model favoured by Morris, helping young women
to earn a living through embroidery, rug-making, printing and bookbinding. Breaking away
from Gleeson in 1908, the sisters established Cuala Press, producing prints and cards and
publishing new works by writers associated with the Irish literary revival, including W.B.
Yeats and J.M Synge. The Yeats family’s contribution to Irish culture is already legendary, but
the two sisters Lily and Lolly perhaps deserve more recognition for their integral role.
Fig. 1. Students of the Dublin Metropolitan School of
Art including Margaret Crilley
Fig. 2. Students at life class at the Dublin
Metropolitan School including Harry Clarke
who was to marry fellow student Margaret
Crilley also in photo.
5
‘Metropolitan School of Art, Dublin’, Mapping the Practice and Profession of Sculpture in Britain and Ireland 1851-1951,
University of Glasgow History of Art and HATII,
6
Turpin, J., The Metropolitan School of Art 1900-1923 (Part I) p.59-78. In: Dublin Historical Record, Vol. 37, No. 2 (1984)
7
Lewis, G., Rediscovered embroideries by Lily Yeats, p.147-150. In: Irish Arts Review Vol. 14 (1998)
Cont. p24
