‘Collaborating in Conflict: The Yeats Family and the Public Arts’
The McMullen Museum of Art at Boston College presents the exclusive exhibition Collaborating in Conflict: The Yeats Family and the Public Arts, which examines the extraordinary impact that three generations of the talented Yeats family had on cultural life and the public arts in twentieth-century Ireland, during a period of conflict crucial to Ireland’s history and independence.
Organized by the McMullen in collaboration with the University’s John J. Burns Library, the exhibition is on display from February 1 through May 31, and is co-curated by BC Professor of English and Irish Studies Marjorie Howes, Burns Librarian and Associate University Librarian Christian Dupont, and McMullen Assistant Director Diana Larsen.
Collaborating in Conflict constitutes the most expansive exploration of the Yeats family’s contributions to the public arts to date, organizers note, and many objects are publicly displayed for the first time, others for the first time outside of Ireland.
“The McMullen Museum, in partnership with the John J. Burns Library, is honored to present the most comprehensive exhibition ever devoted to the Yeats family and their far-reaching influence on Irish cultural life during the transformative decades surrounding independence,” said inaugural Robert L. and Judith T. Winston Director of the McMullen Museum Nancy Netzer, a professor of art history at Boston College.
Jack B. Yeats (1871–1957). 'A Silence,' 1944 Oil on canvas; The O’Brien Collection.
The exhibition features some 200 works, including important holdings from the McMullen Museum and Burns Library, with significant loans from premier Irish, Northern Irish, and American collections—both public and private, and some anonymous lenders.
Among them are paintings, drawings, prints, embroideries, books, and letters by patriarch and acclaimed artist John Butler Yeats and his children: poet William, one of the foremost figures of 20th-century literature; Lily, an embroiderer associated with the Celtic Revival; educator and publisher Elizabeth; artist Jack; and William’s daughter, Anne, a painter and theater designer.
“We extend our deepest gratitude to our lenders and the distinguished scholars in both the United States and Ireland whose generosity and insight have made this groundbreaking exhibition and its accompanying publication possible,” Netzer added.
Elizabeth C. Yeats (1868–1940). Fan with landscape, floral designs, and text from William B. Yeats’s 'Anashuya and Vijaya.'. Watercolor on silk; engraved tortoiseshell. | National Gallery of Ireland, Centre for the Study of Irish Art.
The accomplished Yeats family members highlight examples of individual artistry and demonstrate how their artistic expression was varied and deeply collaborative.
In illustrated poetry, set designs, embroideries for home and liturgical use, printed broadsides, paintings, sketchbooks, and other media, the siblings drew upon each other’s acumen. Their endeavors were often fraught with conflict, resulting in creative tensions and financial hardships.
“The exhibition explores the artistic achievements of three generations of a talented, complicated family who believed that the arts are equipment for living, that they matter in the everyday lives of individuals and in the public sphere,” said Howes. “I see this project as especially meaningful for our contemporary moment, in which educators, artists, and researchers are working to imagine and reimagine vital futures for the arts and the humanities.”
Prints illustrating W. B. Yeats’s 'The Song of Wandering Aengus' (1899). Cuala Press, hand-colored prints. | John J. Burns Library, Boston College, Loretta Clarke Murray Collection of Women in Revolutionary Ireland.
Collaborating in Conflict: The Yeats Family and the Public Arts
The exhibition opens by exploring portraiture of Yeats family members and representations of places of importance to them, and moves on to objects illustrating the family’s engagement with youth as a site of education, entertainment, and memory. Other sections reveal how the family members created objects that transformed private spaces through imaginative innovation and material practices, and shaped public life through theater, publishing and printing, and visual representations of a distinctive Irish identity as the nation established itself post-independence.
“The curatorial team endeavored to provide a meaningful context for Boston College’s holdings of Yeats material by engaging with several Irish national institutions housing collections of works by all of the family members,” according to Larsen. “The experience of selecting objects in Ireland was greatly enhanced by the enthusiasm of our potential lenders. They showed us hospitality by giving us access to their rich collections for consideration as loans, and generosity with their time and care to facilitate our requests.”
Jack B. Yeats (1871–1957). 'A Political Meeting (in the West of Ireland),' 1905. Watercolor and graphite on paper. | The Niland Collection.
Of particular note among the objects presented, in different media and time frames, is the inclusion of “a wide variety of embroideries by Lily Yeats heretofore not exhibited,” she added. “We were also able to secure the participation of several generous American collectors which have also greatly enriched the exhibition.”
Recent gifts to Boston College anchor and served as inspiration for the exhibition: Jack B. Yeats paintings and Lily Yeats Stations of the Cross embroideries received by the McMullen Museum, and additional acquisitions of Yeats family materials by the Burns Library. These are complemented by loans from the Model, home of the Niland Collection (Sligo, Ireland), the National Gallery of Ireland, the Library of Trinity College Dublin, the O’Brien Collection (Chicago), and the Collection of Carolyn A. and Peter S. Lynch.
In 2021, Peter Lynch—vice-chairman of Fidelity Management and Research Company, a 1965 BC alumnus and trustee associate—gifted 27 paintings and three drawings from his and his late wife Carolyn’s private art collection to the McMullen Museum. The majority, which date from the mid-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century, are by era’s most prominent artists. Three paintings by Jack B. Yeats in the collection will be on display. An additional nine works by Jack and John Yeats are also on loan from the private Lynch Collection.
Other lenders are the National Museums Northern Ireland; University of Galway; St. Mary’s Pro-Cathedral (Dublin); St. Brendan’s Cathedral, Clonfert Diocesan Museum (Loughrea, Ireland).
Anne Yeats (1919–2001). Preparatory sketch for mural commission at the Unicorn restaurant, Dublin, July–August 1946. Watercolor and ink on paper in sketchbook. | National Gallery of Ireland, Centre for the Study of Irish Art.
“The inspiration for this exhibition sprang from acquisitions by Boston College and other institutions in recent years from sales and donations by Yeats family descendants, which brought many previously inaccessible sources into the public arena,” according to Dupont. “Burns Library has focused on acquiring materials that document the lives and creative output of women associated with Cuala Industries, the Arts and Crafts cooperative society founded by Elizabeth and Lily Yeats in 1908.”
Dupont said the donation of “Lily’s remarkable series of embroidered Stations of the Cross” to the McMullen Museum was facilitated by BC Morrissey College of Arts & Sciences Dean Gregory Kalscheur, S.J., following the closure of a Jesuit center in Pennsylvania where they had been kept since their commissioning in conjunction with the 1932 Eucharistic Congress in Dublin.
Collaborating in Conflict is accompanied by an extensive, fully illustrated catalogue edited by Howes, with 15 essays contributed by an interdisciplinary team of scholars who offer new insights into historical contexts and interpretive frameworks for studying the Yeats family. In conjunction with the exhibition, Howes has organized an academic symposium at the museum on February 20–21. It will feature lectures by experts in Ireland’s visual arts, theater and performance, textiles and embroidery, printing and publishing, and social and cultural history.
The exhibition is underwritten by Boston College with major support from the Patrons of the McMullen Museum, the John C. Donohue Estate, Robert ’63 and Ann Marie Reardon P’91, and the Anna Frances Vegkeley Ryan Estate in memory of John Anthony Ryan Jr. ’50. Additional support has been provided by William J. Lundregan III, Esq., ’62, JD’67, P’93, ’96, and Elaine Stein-Cummins in memory of Daniel Cummins ’58.
● In-person docent tours of the Carolyn A. and Peter S. Lynch Collection begin Sunday, February 8 (every Sunday, 3–4 p.m.)
● In-person docent tours of Collaborating in Conflict begin Sunday, February 22 (every Sunday, 2–3 p.m.)
● Virtual Members’ lecture: Sunday, February 1, noon
● Yeats Symposium featuring lectures by experts in Ireland’s visual arts, theater and performance, textiles and embroidery, printing and publishing, and social and cultural history: February 20–21
● Virtual docent tours: Tuesday, March 31, 5:30 pm; Thursday, April 16, noon; Friday, May 1, 3:30 p.m.; Saturday, May 16, 11:00 a.m.; Friday, May 29 at 3:30 p.m.
More in-person and virtual events will be added; visit the McMullen website for information and registration, or subscribe to the McMullen mailing list for updates. Visit McMullen From Home for recordings of all lectures as well as an archive of virtual walkthroughs, digital exhibition catalogues, podcasts, interactive spotlights, and more.
Admission to the McMullen Museum is free; and the venue is wheelchair accessible. For directions, parking, and program information, visit mcmullenmuseum.bc.edu.