Jack B.Yeats Summer Exhibition

Jack B. Yeats - The Sea and the Lighthouse

As we announced on our blog a few weeks ago, we have an exhibition of Jack B. Yeats works drawn from The Niland Collection opening next week – on Friday evening in fact. The works are being exhibited as part of the Yeats Festival Season. The exhibition entitled Jack B Yeats; The Sligo Paintings will be hosted by Sligo Art Gallery and features many of the finest and best loved Yeats paintings from The Niland Collection.

This is the first opportunity The Model has had to show these works in Sligo this year and all are welcome to attend the free exhibition which runs 6 days a week from Saturday 25^th July until August 15^th at the Sligo Art Gallery, which is in the Yeats Memorial Building on Hyde Bridge.

During the temporary closure of The Model the works from The Niland Collection have been on tour to other galleries, notably to the National Gallery of Ireland where they were seen by thousands of visitors over the course of 2008.  Many of the Jack B. Yeats works require particular environmental controls to allow them to be shown which has prevented the exhibition possibilities tin Sligo this year, but we are thankful of the support of the Sligo Art Gallery in hosting this particular exhibition and are especially delighted to have the works on show to coincide with the busy summer period, and the 50^th Yeats Summer School.

This show will examine the influence of both the people and the landscape of Sligo on the painter and will feature favourites such as Leaving the Far Point, The Sea and the Lighthouse and The Metal Man.

Reared in Sligo by his maternal grandparents, Yeats spent much of his time travelling the town and county with his grandfather who owned a shipping business. The landscape and the characters he encountered during this time made a deep and lasting impression on the young artist, and he returned to the memories of his Sligo days for inspiration for his work again and again through out his life.  In his later years Yeats acknowledged the deep influence of Sligo on his work when he said that he had never created a painting that did not have in it “at least a thought of Sligo”

The Model will also be holding free children’s art workshops exploring Yeats and the Sea on Saturday the 25th July, 1st & 8th August.  The workshops take place in The Glasshouse Hotel but must be booked with The Model in advance on 071-914 1405 as places are strictly limited.

The Model is currently planning a major Jack B. Yeats retrospective which will open at the newly renovated Model in June 2010 and from there will tour nationally and internationally.

The opening reception for Jack B Yeats; The Sligo Paintings will take place at 5 pm on Friday 24 July and all are welcome.

A Tour of the ‘Land of Hearts Desire’

Ben Bulben, Sligo, photgraph taken by p a u l

this entry comes courtesy of Anne Bucknell, our front of house manager and a familiar face at the front desk whom anyone who has visited the Model will surely know well.

Last week we were given the opportunity, courtesy of the Sligo Chamber of Commerce, to tour the county to visit beauty spots and places of interest. We were met in the Clarion Hotel car park one morning by Joan Gallagher (SCC) and Joe (our driver) and we set off.

Almost immediately we were in beautiful sunny tree lined countryside and headed to Glencar to see the lake and the waterfall; made famous by W.B.Yeats in several works, most notably in Towards Break of Day:

“I thought: “There is a waterfall
Upon Ben Bulben side
That all my childhood counted dear;
Were I to travel far and wide
I could not find a thing so dear.’
My memories had magnified
So many times childish delight”

- W.B. Yeats (extract from Towards the Break of Day)

On this day the hedgerows and meadows were in full bloom and the lake was like a mill pond with just bird song to break the silence, and all under the majesty of Ben Bulben. Everyone in the coach was silent, overawed, I think, by the scenery all around them. Only three of us were from the area and I’m sure they felt as proud of our beautiful county as I did.

Lissadell House was our next stop. The guided tour was very informative and good fun and lasted about 45 minutes. Our schedule did not allow us time to visit the restored grounds and gardens but I will return. The house is full of photographs, paintings and manuscripts relating to W.B. Yeats and Jack B. Yeats and, of course, Countess Markievicz, all fascinating stuff.

Cast a cold eye 
On life, on death. 
Horseman, pass by!

Drumcliffe churchyard was next. The church is always lovely to visit and Yeats grave had plenty of visitors. We had coffee at the Tea Rooms, sitting in the sunshine listening to a harpist. Teach Ban Nua, artist Tom O’Rourke’s gallery across from the Tea Rooms, is always interesting.

And so, back to busy, bustling Sligo Town, where, if it’s delights prove too much, just minutes away, in any direction, lie places of natural beauty and variety, surely, the ‘Land of Hearts Desire’

Thank you to Sligo Chamber of Commerce for inviting us, to Joan for minding us, Joe for all the useful information, to Debbie McNair from Discovery Tours for organising everything for us and to Sligo Leader for funding, it was a memorable, informative and hugely enjoyable day.

- Anne Bucknell