"And Bury In State This Singular Yeat" Yeats, (Jack B.) Epi...

Estimate

€2,000 - €3,000

"And Bury In State This Singular Yeat"

Yeats, (Jack B.) Epitaphs, To Thomas Bodkin; Jack B. Yeats; Dermod O'Brien; George Russell; James P. O'Reilly; [Dr. Thomas] Mc Loughlin; [George Hill] Tulloch, and Liam Dawson. Typescript four pages qtr. signed, captioned, and dated February 16th 1933 by Jack B Yeats. 
Jack B. Yeats, one of Ireland's greatest painters was thus described by Thomas MacGreevy in his response to Bodkin: I think, to leave ourselves open to the charge of under-rating the genius of a living Irish painter who, at his finest, leaves Hone where the man of genius leaves the man of talent... In drawing, in colour, in design, there has not, I believe, been any Irish painter whose work is as unerringly right, as rich and as delicate as Mr. Jack B. Yeat's. No Hone that I have ever seen could, I think equal, much less surpass, the aesthetic quality, the impressive design, the massive movement, the fine colour, in the last Jack Yeats exhibition here. 
Jack B. Yeats jointed the United Arts Club in 1912, at that time a cultural force and a strong and growing association between the arts and politics. Many prominent members were key political figures in the planning of the 1916 Rising (Thomas MacDonagh, Joseph Mary Plunkett, Constance Markievicz, Erskine Childers, Robert Barton). Many of Yeats' attitudes on art and culture were channelled through the United Arts Club, which became his favourite watering hole, almost his second home when he moved from Greystones to Donnybrook. 'It is remembered that this tall thin figure could fold itself into a chair beside some shy or lonely soul for a moment's chat which left a warm feeling of comfort.' 
The epitaphs were his forte as contribution to club entertainments in which he managed to encapsulate the characteristic of each. He wrote them for several members including one for himself, in which he mimics his brother. Dermod O'Brien was also a recipient. Jack stated that he thought they sounded better than they looked.
A possibly unique item, Bruce Arnold in Jack Yeats, 1998, includes two of these only (Bodkin & Jack B.), which came for the Yeats family. There is no copy in the National Library of Ireland, and to our knowledge this is the only complete collection extant.

"Under no stones
No slates
Lies Jack B. Yeats
No heaped up rocks,
Just a collection box.
Would like to be jolly
And bury in state
This singular Yeat.
But they were not so inclined
Therefore if you've a mind
To slide a copper in the slot
'Twill help to sod the plot.
Possibly a unique surviving copy, showing yet another side to Jack's many talents. (1)