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Jack Butler Yeats, 1871–1957

St Stephen’s Green, Closing Time, 1950

This painting was created towards the end of Yeats’s career when his style had become very loose and dynamic. The painting depicts two figures sitting on a bench in St. Stephen’s Green at twilight. One appears to be sitting on the arm of the bench while the other squats beside them. The eminent closure of the park indicated by the title contrasted with the demeanour of the seated figures to create a sense of tension and expectancy within the work.

Paint is applied in fast, broad brushstrokes directly to the canvas using a dry brush technique which leaves the surface and texture of the canvas visible to form the background of the painting through the painted foliage. Small amounts of thick white impasto paint indicate a source of light above the figures and create a diagonal of light which draws the viewer’s eye to the centre of painting, to the figures and upwards to the source of the light. The elegiac note in the painting, suggested by the fading daylight and the departing figures, is enlightened by tiny passages of colourful grass and flowers.

MediumOil on canvas
Dimensions Unframed, 36 x 53.5 cm
Credit LineIMMA Collection: Heritage Gift by Brian Timmons, 2002
Item NumberIMMA.1578
Copyright For copyright information, please contact the IMMA Collections team: [email protected].
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Image Caption
Jack Butler Yeats, St Stephen’s Green, Closing Time, 1950, Oil on canvas, Unframed, 36 x 53.5 cm, Collection Irish Museum of Modern Art, Heritage Gift by Brian Timmons, 2002

For copyright information, please contact the IMMA Collections team: [email protected].

About the Artist

Jack Butler Yeats, 1871–1957

Irish painter Jack Butler Yeats was born in London and grew up in Sligo. He attended the Government School of Design and the Westminster School of Art. Yeats was elected a member of the Royal Hibernian Academy in 1916. His painting ‘The Liffey Swim’ won a silver medal at the 1924 Olympic Games in Paris. The broad fluid brushstrokes of that work mark the beginning of his expressive and experimental style. Yeats's work is held in numerous national collections including IMMA, the National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane, Crawford Art Gallery.

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