Beschreibung:

Artist: Jack Butler Yeats RHA (1871-1957) Title: The Derelict Ship (1946) Signature: signed lower left 'JACK B YEATS' and titled verso Medium: oil on canvas Size: 46 x 61cm (18.1 x 24in) Framed Size: 63.5 x 79cm (25 x 31.1in) Provenance: Victor Waddington, London; Mr. and Mrs A. Sanderson, London; Christie's London: 11th June 1982: Lot no. 145; Private Collection; Sotheby's, London: 13th May 1987: Lot no.176; Private Collection, Ireland; Theo Waddington Fine Art, London; Waddington Galleries, London; Private Collection, UK; Private Collection, Ireland Exhibited: Jack B.Yeats: Oil Paintings', Victor Waddington Galleries, Dublin: 30th October - 8th November 1946, catalogue no.14; 'Jack B.Yeats: Peintures', Galerie Beaux-Arts, Paris: February 1954, catalogue no.33; 'Jack B. Yeats: A Celtic Visionary', City Art Galleries, Manchester: 9th March - 21st April 1996; touring to Leeds City Art Galleries: 27th April - 2nd June 1996: Ormeau Baths Gallery, Belfast: 7th June - 6th July 1996, catalogue no. 5 (reproduced in colour); 'Jack B. Yeats: Paintings and Works on Paper', Waddington Galleries and Theo Waddington Fine Art, London: 20th November - 21st December 1996, catalogue no.13 (reproduced in colour); 'Jack B. Yeats: Paintings, Watercolours and Drawings', Waddington Galleries, London, in association with Theo Waddington, 16th November - 17th December 2005, catalogue no.4 (reproduced in colour p.17); 'Father and Son: Paintings, Watercolours and Drawings by John Butler Yeats and Jack Butler Yeats', Theo and Vivienne Waddington's Irish Art Project at 5a Cork Street, London: 5th - 30th May 2009 Literature: Jack B. Yeats: A Catalogue Raisonné of the Oil Paintings, Hilary Pyle, André Deutsch, London, 1992, no.781, p.704 (reproduced in black and white p.217, plate 205; listed p.304); This work is recorded in the artist's Log Book II, under "D", where Yeats dates it June 1946. a#morebtn { color: #de1d01; } a#morebtn:hover { cursor: pointer;} The painting depicts a boy stepping onto a derelict ship tied up to a quay, overlooked by a three-storey building with porticoed doorway. Barefoot, dressed in a blue pullover and green trousers, the legs of which have been rolled up, the boy advances cautiously along the gangplank. Over his left sho... Read more The painting depicts a boy stepping onto a derelict ship tied up to a quay, overlooked by a three-storey building with porticoed doorway. Barefoot, dressed in a blue pullover and green trousers, the legs of which have been rolled up, the boy advances cautiously along the gangplank. Over his left shoulder he carries what appears to be a sack, or a jacket. In his right hand, held high to help maintain his balance, is a newspaper or white packet. The risk of falling, as the boy advances along the slippery gangway, adds drama to the scene. Yeats often depicted people whose lives entailed a degree of risk, or drama, such as circus performers, actors, ragamuffins, jockeys and sailors. He imbued his paintings with a sense of private and personal memory, and a desire to place the viewer almost within the event being depicted. His art provides glimpses into an everyday life, mainly of Sligo, and also into his own imaginative world. His feeling of empathy for the excluded and marginalised can be traced back to Yeats’s early life, when he lived in London. Economic deprivation, and people living on the fringes of society, are constant themes in his work. He was drawn to quays, as he described in his novel The Charmed Life, published in 1938: “We took no chances. Down by the quayside we felt able to look about us without fear, for there we were among men of the wide world, travellers, men of the hilly seas, like ourselves, distrustful of these townsmen with their yellow-lighted shops” While Yeats has used his characteristic impasto and palette-knife technique in depicting quayside, ship and boy, the ha