View source for John Butler Yeats

{{Short description|Anglo-Irish artist (1839–1922)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=January 2025}}
{{Infobox person
| honorific_prefix   = 
| name               = John Butler Yeats
| honorific_suffix   = [[Royal Hibernian Academy|RHA]]
| image              = John Butler Yeats by Alice Boughton cropped.jpg
| alt                = 
| caption            = John Butler Yeats by [[Alice Boughton]]
| native_name        = 
| native_name_lang   = 
| birth_name         = <!-- only use if different from name -->
| birth_date         = {{Birth date|1839|03|16|df=y}}
| birth_place        = [[Lawrencetown, County Down]], Ireland
| death_date         = {{Death date and age|1922|02|03|1839|03|16|df=y}}
| death_place        = [[New York City]], U.S. 
| resting_place      = [[Chestertown, New York]], U.S. 
| resting_place_coordinates = <!-- {{Coord|LAT|LONG|type:landmark|display=inline}} -->
| nationality        = 
| education          = [[Trinity College, Dublin]]<br>[[Heatherley School of Fine Art]]
| alma_mater         = 
| known_for          = Painting
| notable_works      = 
| style              = 
| movement           = 
| spouse             = 
| partner            = 
| awards             = <!-- {{awd|award|year|title|role|name}} (optional) -->
| children           = [[W. B. Yeats]]<br>[[Lily Yeats]]<br>[[Elizabeth Yeats]]<br>[[Jack Butler Yeats]]
| website            = <!-- {{URL|Example.com}} -->
| module             = 
}}
'''John Butler Yeats''' [[Royal Hibernian Academy|RHA]] (16 March 1839 – 3 February 1922) was an [[Irish people|Irish]] artist and the father of [[W. B. Yeats]], [[Lily Yeats]], [[Elizabeth Yeats|Elizabeth Corbett "Lollie" Yeats]] and [[Jack Butler Yeats]]. The [[National Gallery of Ireland]] holds a number of his portraits in oil and works on paper, including one of his portraits of his son William, painted in 1900.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://onlinecollection.nationalgallery.ie/objects/11684/portrait-of-william-butler-yeats-18651939-poet?ctx=263512f2-dfbf-47f5-95bd-a73152331baf&idx=4|title=Portrait of William Butler Yeats|website=National Gallery of Ireland online collection|access-date=21 August 2018}}</ref>

==Career==
Yeats was born in [[Lawrencetown, County Down|Lawrencetown]], townland of [[Tullylish]], [[County Down]] to an [[Anglo-Irish]] family. His parents were William Butler Yeats (1806–1862) and Jane Grace Corbert; John Butler Yeats was the eldest of nine children. Educated at [[Trinity College Dublin]], and a member of the [[University Philosophical Society]], John Butler Yeats began his career as a lawyer and [[Devilling|devilled]] briefly with [[Isaac Butt]] before he took up painting in 1867 and studied at the [[Heatherley School of Fine Art]]. <ref>{{Cite web |title=Jack Butler Yeats {{!}} Modernist, Symbolist, Landscape {{!}} Britannica |url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Jack-Butler-Yeats |access-date=2025-05-27 |website=www.britannica.com |language=en}}</ref>After John Butler Yeats returned to Ireland in 1881, he began to exhibit paintings at the [[Royal Hibernian Academy]], which elected him a member (RHA) in 1892.<ref>{{Cite web |title=You are being redirected... |url=https://www.dib.ie/biography/yeats-john-butler-a9158#:~:text=Because%20of%20his%20failure%20in,elected%20him%20RHA%20in%201892. |access-date=2025-02-19 |website=www.dib.ie}}</ref> There are few records of his sales, so there is no catalogue of his work in private collections. It is possible that some of his early work may have been destroyed by fire in [[World War II]]. It is clear that he had no trouble getting commissions as his sketches and oils are found in private homes in Ireland, England and America. His later portraits show great sensitivity to the sitter. However, he was a poor businessman and was never financially secure. He moved house frequently and shifted several times between England and Ireland.

In 1907, at the age of 68, he travelled to New York aboard the ''{{RMS|Campania}}'' with his daughter Lily and never returned to Ireland.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|title=Prodigal father : the life of John Butler Yeats (1839-1922)|last=Murphy|first=William M.|date=2001|publisher=[[Syracuse University Press]]|isbn=0815607253|location=Syracuse, N.Y.|oclc=47168769}}</ref> In October 1909 he moved into his final home, a boarding house run by the Petitpas sisters which was located at 317 West 29th Street.<ref name=":0" /> In New York, he was friendly with members of the [[Ashcan School]] of painters. He died in the boarding house on 3 February 1922.<ref>https://www.newspapers.com/image/469277894/?match=1&terms=john%20butler%20yeats</ref> Edmund Quinn made a death mask which is now in the collection of the Yeats Society in Sligo.<ref name=":0" /> John Butler Yeats is buried in Chestertown Rural Cemetery in [[Chestertown, New York]], next to his friend, [[Jeanne Robert Foster]].

==Family==<!-- Anchor from redirect of [Susan Pollexfan; caution. -->
Yeats married Susan Pollexfen (13 July 1841 – 3 January 1900) on 10 September 1863 at St. John's Church, Sligo. Susan Yeats was dismayed when her husband abandoned the study of law to become an artist.<ref>O'Donnell and Archibald (1999), p. 424</ref> Susan is described as a "shadowy figure" who went "quietly, pitifully, mad".<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=3NlHEbnP_AYC&dq=susan+pollexfen&pg=PA327 ''The Geography of the Imagination: Forty Essays'', Guy Davenport, p.327]</ref>

John and Susan had three sons and three daughters, including writer [[William Butler Yeats]] and artists [[Jack Butler Yeats]], [[Lily Yeats|Susan Mary "Lily" Yeats]], and [[Elizabeth Yeats|Elizabeth Corbet "Lollie" Yeats]].

==Gallery==
<gallery widths="200px" heights="250px" perrow="4">
William Butler Yeats by John Butler Yeats 1900.jpg|''[[Portrait of W. B. Yeats]]'' (1900)
File:John Butler Yeats, by John Butler Yeats.jpg|''Self-portrait'' (1919)
File:Constance Markiewicz by John Butler Yeats.jpg|''Portrait of Countess [[Constance Markievicz]]'' (before 1922); an Irish politician, revolutionary nationalist and [[suffragette]]; pencil drawing
</gallery>

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==Sources==
* John Butler Yeats, [https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/62893 Early memories; some chapters of autobiography]. Dublin: Cuala Press, 1923 
* Douglas N. Archibald (1974), ''John Butler Yeats'' Bucknell University Press-Irish Writers Series.
* Martyn Anglesea (2003), ''Yeats, John Butler'' in Brian Lalor (Ed.) ''The Encyclopedia of Ireland''. Dublin: Gill & Macmillan. {{ISBN|0-7171-3000-2}}.
* Bruce Arnold (1977), ''Irish Art, a concise history''. London: Thames and Hudson. {{ISBN|0-500-20148-X}}
* Robert Gordon (1978), ''John Butler Yeats and John Sloan the records of a friendship''. The Dolmen Press New Yeats Papers XIV Dublin.
* Declan J Foley (2009), editor, ''Letters of John Butler Yeats to his son Jack B. Yeats''. Lilliput Press Dublin {{ISBN|978-1-84351-155-7}}.
* Joseph Hone, editor (1944), ''J.B.Yeats Letters to his son W. B. Yeats and Others 1969-1922'', Faber and Faber, 1 & 2 eds., republished Martin Secker and Waburg Ltd, (1983). Abridged and with an Introduction by John McGahern. (London): Faber, (1999). 
* Raymond Keaveney (2002), ''National Gallery of Ireland, Essential Guide''. London: Scala. {{ISBN|1-85759-267-0}}.
* Janis Londraville, editor, (2003) ''Prodigal Father Revisited: Artists and writers in the World of John Butler Yeats'', Locust Hill Press, includes papers from first John Butler Yeats Seminar, Chestertown 2001.
* William M. Murphy (1978), ''Prodigal Father: The Life of John Butler Yeats, 1839–1922'', published by Cornell University Press.  Paperback 1979, and reprinted in paperback with some new material in 2001 by Syracuse University Press.
* William M. Murphy (1995), ''Family Secrets: William Butler Yeats and His Relatives'' Syracuse University Press, 1995.
* William M. Murphy (1971), ''The Yeats Family and the Pollexfens of Sligo'' (Dublin:Dolmen).
* William M. Murphy,; Fintan Cullen, eds.(1987), ''The Drawings of John Butler Yeats''. (Albany, New York: Albany Institute of History and Art, and Union College, Departments of Art and English).
* William M Murphy (1995), ''Family Secrets William Butler Yeats and His Relatives''. Syracuse UP.
* Robert Gordon (1978), ''John Butler Yeats and John Sloan: The Record of a Friendship''. The Dolmen Press New Yeats Papers XIV Dublin. 
* Lennox Robinson, editor (1920), ''Further Letters of John Butler Yeats'': Selected by Lennox Robinson, The Cuala Press, Churchtown, Dundrum, County Dublin.
* Yeats John Butler (1918),''Essays Irish and American'', (with an appreciation by AE) Talbot Press Dublin/T Fisher Unwin London. ''Early Memories: Some Chapters of Autobiography'' (1923) The Cuala Press, Churchtown, Dundrum County Dublin.
* ''Passages From The Letters of John Butler Yeats: Selected by Ezra Pound'' (1917). The Cuala Press Churchtown, Dundrum, County Dublin 
* James White (1972), ''John Butler Yeats and The Irish Renaissance with pictures from the collection of Michael Butler Yeats and from The National Gallery of Ireland''. The Dolmen Press Dublin.

==Further reading==
* {{Cite news |last1=Tóibín |first1=Colm |title=The Playboy of West 29th Street |work=[[London Review of Books]] |pages=7–12 |date=2018-01-25 |url=https://www.lrb.co.uk/v40/n02/colm-toibin/the-playboy-of-west-29th-street |issn=0260-9592 }}

==External links==
{{Commons category|John Butler Yeats}}

*{{UK National Archives ID}}
*{{npg name|id=04966|name=John Butler Yeats}}
*[http://www.yeatssociety.com Yeats Society Sligo]
*{{Librivox author |id=15327}}
*[https://bc-primo.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com/primo-explore/fulldisplay?docid=ALMA-BC21323260060001021&context=L&vid=bclib_new&search_scope=lib_BURNS&tab=bcl_only&lang=en_US Boston College collection of Yeats family papers] at John J. Burns Library, [[Boston College]]
* {{LCAuth|n50014257|John Butler Yeats|16|ue}}

{{W. B. Yeats}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Yeats, John Butler}}
[[Category:1839 births]]
[[Category:1922 deaths]]
[[Category:19th-century Irish painters]]
[[Category:Irish male painters]]
[[Category:20th-century Irish painters]]
[[Category:Alumni of Trinity College Dublin]]
[[Category:Butler Yeats family|John]]
[[Category:Irish Anglicans]]
[[Category:Irish draughtsmen]]
[[Category:Artists from County Down]]
[[Category:19th-century Irish male artists]]
[[Category:20th-century Irish male artists]]
[[Category:Burials in Warren County, New York]]