Jack B. Yeats, Irish, 1871-1957
Title: In the Tram
Date: 1923
Medium: Oil on board
Dimensions:
23 x 36 cm
Signed: lower left: Jack B. Yeats
Credit Line: Bequeathed, Mr R. Best, 1959
Object Number: NGI.1408
ProvenanceWaddington Galleries; purchased, Richard Irvine Best, 1942; bequeathed, Mr R. Best, 1959
Exhibition HistoryDrawings and Pictures of Life in the West of Ireland, Stephen's Green Gallery, Dublin, 25 April - 9 May 1923
Paintings of Irish Life, Gieves Art Gallery, London, 7-18 January 1924
A Borough Portrait, Town Hall, Dun Laoghaire, 14-22 October 1980
Jack B. Yeats in the National Gallery of Ireland, National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin, 26 March - 20 April 1986
Yeats at the Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery of Modern Art, Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery of Modern Art, Dublin, 26 June - 15 Ocotber, 1988
Images in Yeats, Centre de Congres, Monaco, 11-16 June 1990; National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin, 9-31 July 1990
Paintings of Irish Life, Gieves Art Gallery, London, 7-18 January 1924
A Borough Portrait, Town Hall, Dun Laoghaire, 14-22 October 1980
Jack B. Yeats in the National Gallery of Ireland, National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin, 26 March - 20 April 1986
Yeats at the Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery of Modern Art, Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery of Modern Art, Dublin, 26 June - 15 Ocotber, 1988
Images in Yeats, Centre de Congres, Monaco, 11-16 June 1990; National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin, 9-31 July 1990
Label TextDuring the early 1920s Yeats produced vivid impressions of the life of ordinary Dubliners in the early days of the Free State. This work, painted in 1923, shows three women deep in conversation on a Lucan tram, while a solitary man sits hunched up in the corner. The faces of the women carry subtleties of expression typical of Yeats’s work at this time, but such a close study of women represented a new departure. It anticipates the more overtly romantic rendering of women present in his later work.