The National Gallery of Ireland is hosting the ‘Anne Yeats: The Everyday Fantastic’ exhibition until 9 October, 2022. It highlights the creativity, experimentation and process in Yeats’s art practice across a number of decades.
Moving between traditional and modern worlds, Yeats was interested in both the everyday and the fantastic. As the chief designer for the Abbey Theatre and founding member of both Graphic Studio and Aosdána, Yeats’s important contribution to Irish culture can be explored through dozens of sketches, etchings and paintings in this exhibition.
She was born in Dublin to poet William Butler Yeats. She studied at the Royal Hibernian Academy Schools, and then worked as chief stage designer at the Abbey Theatre until 1940, before returning to painting.
Yeats painted brightly coloured landscapes, still-lifes, and figure paintings, in a naive expressionist style of art, using oils and mixed media. Her work has been exhibited widely both abroad and in Ireland with shows in America, Germany, and the Netherlands, along with the Irish Exhibition of Living Art, Taispeántas an Oireachtas.
She passed away in 2001. She donated her collection of her uncle Jack B. Yeats’ sketch books to the National Gallery of Ireland, enabling the creation of the Yeats Museum within the Gallery.
‘Anne Yeats: The Everyday Fantastic’ is presented in Room 11. Admission is free and no booking is required.