Newspaper Clippings

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JACK YEATS AT 84 A Call at the Studio in Fitzwilliam Square, Dublin 20.1X.55 By Mary Delane Fitzwilliam Square is the Harley Street of Dublin, and the door of the tall old house carries its complement of brass plates but nothing to indicate that here, too, is another tenant. The only clue is a tiny plaque upstairs: "Studio." It was, however, Jack Yeats himself who opened the door and bade one welcome with the friendly grace of his kind. Where would I like to sit? Then we discovered that each had a slightly deaf ear, and were strangers no more. He chuckled. "A man once spent half an hour selling me some sort of hearing appliance for £42. I might have known it wasn't any good, he worked so hard to sell it!" Where had I been in Ireland—to the West? Ah! As memory lit his face story after remembered story flowed one upon another. Here was wit without malice; the clear, analytical mind of the true artist; in one man's life the history of a whole epoch, told as only an Irishman can tell it. There were tales of Ireland, of his loved Sligo; of England; of Lady Ottilie Morell and her There were too many eccentrics at that time in Devon. "We either had to become eccentric ourselves, or leave." So they returned to Sligo. "Devon families were more closed. They would go into the house among themselves. In Ireland people were more simple, and real. They would sit in sheltered banks and talk together." With Synge, too, Jack Yeats did some work for the "Manchester Guardian" 50 years ago. Synge writing, Yeats drawing. They were not proud of it. "There we were, Synge banging his typewriter in his bedroom, while I tried to draw in mine. Fancy trying to do something without time to think. But I suppose that is how newspapers must work." He shook his head ruefully, and suddenly the large grey eyes were full on mine with a challenging twinkle. "I remember C. P. Scott. He used to ride a bicycle to work. Said it was the only way he could get exercise. He lived in the suburbs where there were trees. The only possible place a sensible man could live in Manchester then." Yeats's Pictures All too soon it was time to go. And inevitably one was drawn back to the exhibition of some of the artist's paintings at Victor Waddington's gallery, which includes a large canvas painted only last year: "Horsemen." One tries to count how many. Is it four? The strange power of the eerie, fragile figures, the mastery of blazing colour, is as moving, as haunting, as ever. As in "Man with a Book," also on show, and "Last Dawn But One," in which shadowy figures of soldiers are breaking camp in the first thin stillness of early day. His pictures are in prized collections throughout the world. But Jack Yeats has no tricks, and he will not allow any reproductions other than the few small prints in exhibition catalogues. "Not for the sake of principle; I had strong 'principles' when I was young. Nor through any wish to be obstinate. I just believe this is the right way for an artist to feel. It doe…