Yeats, Jack Butler (1871-1957)

Irish painter and illustrator. His spirited portrayals of Irish life and landscape are painted in a colourful and highly individualistic style, with vigorously worked paint, as in Back from the Races (1925; Tate Gallery, London). He was the brother of the poet W B Yeats.

His youth was spent in Sligo, where he was educated privately. His early work consisted mainly of pen and watercolour drawings, lively impressions of country and sporting life and character in Ireland. From 1930 he devoted himself to oil paintings with an emotional violence of colour that might be called Expressionist. In his later years he was considered the most eminent artist in Ireland. His art reflected a new consciousness of Irish nationalism.