Morgan O'Driscoll Irish & International Art Auction 12th November 2018

38 29 Jack Butler Yeats RHA (1871-1957) The Creole (1946) signed ‘JACK B.YEATS’ lower left oil on board 23 x 35.5cm (9x 14in) Provenance: Sold by the artist to Reeves Levanthal, USA, 1946; Collection of Joseph B.Gallagher, New York; Sotheby’s, London, The Irish Sale, 11 May 2006, Lot 69; Private Collection Literature: “Jack B.Yeats - A Catalogue Raisonne of the Oil Paintings” by Hilary Pyle, No.787, p.709 €60,000-€90,000 (£53,571-£80,100) This is a late painting by Yeats, one in which memory and imagination are to the fore, and the artist’s concern for depicting reality has receded, to the point where the painting is becoming largely an abstract work of art; the forms of rock, sea and ship are barely discernible within a glorious haze of expression- ist paintwork. Set against a suggested, rather than represented, background of sea and rocky coastline, the Creole, a two-masted sailing vessel, is moored against a quay wall. The focal point of the painting, Creole is framed by two darker forms, of warehouses, or cliff faces, on either side of the composition. On the right foreground is a bright yellow board, a poster advertising a circus or funfair. There are several possibilities, of vessels named Creole, that Yeats might have had in mind as he painted this work: these include the slave ship of the 1840’s, and a ship chartered in 1847 to take emigrants from Roscommon to New York. However, specific details in this painting, such as lack of a deckhouse, the rounded stern, short masts and long bowsprit, suggest that it was the yacht Creole, built by Camper and Nicholson in 1927, that excited Yeats’s interest and imagination. During World War II, Creole was loaned to the British Admiralty. Her rig and deckhouse were removed, and she was used for transporting troops and hunting mines. By 1946-the year this work was painted-Creole was in a sorry state, and a long way from her years of sailing glory. A year later, she was acquired and fully restored by Stravos Niarchos, the Greek shipping tycoon. Today, Creole is owned by the Gucci family and maintained in impeccable condition at Mallorca. A keen yachtsman himself, from an early age, Yeats often painted and drew sailing vessels. He was a close friend of the poet and novelist John Masefield, whose books, such as Sea Life in Nelson’s Time, The Dauber, A Tarpulin Muster and Salt Water Ballads, were an inspiration to Yeats, many of whose works contain an element of nostalgia, looking back to the great days of sailing ships. Peter Murray, October 2018