The redevelopment this year of The Model Arts and Niland Gallery in Sligo presents a wonderful opportunity for the National Gallery to display a selection of Jack Yeats paintings from the Niland Collection. Beginning around 1920, Yeats developed into an intensely Expressionist artist, moving from illustration to Symbolism. He frequently abandoned the brush altogether, applying paint in a variety of different ways, and was deeply interested in the expressive power of colour. Yeats's favourite subjects include the Irish landscape, horses, the circus and travelling players. He articulated a modern Ireland of the twentieth century, partly by depicting specifically Irish subjects, but also by doing so in the light of universal themes such as the loneliness of the individual, and the universality of the plight of man. The exhibition includes 11 paintings by Jack B. Yeats, among them two early masterpieces in oil depicting scenes of the Civil War, 'The Funeral of Harry Boland' (1922), and 'Communicating with Prisoners' (c.1924) as well as later works such as 'Leaving the Far Point' (1946). The exhibition runs in the Yeats Museum at The National Gallery from March 8th to November 30th.
