Jack Yeats and Dublin

Jack B. Yeats has often been stereotyped as the painter of rural Ireland, and particularly the West. In fact he spent a great deal of his life in towns and cities, and much of the important subject matter of his work is gleaned from this context. The National Gallery of Ireland has a number of Dublin scenes in its Yeats collection, including the Liffey Swim, one of Yeats’s most popular paintings and the first to become part of a public collection. By focusing on three of the National Gallery’s Dublin paintings as well as considering related examples from other collections, this essay will highlight the key ideas expressed in Yeats’s depictions of the city.