Great Irishman crops up at Compton Verney

Jack Yeats, brother of the poet William Butler Yeats, was arguably the best-known Irish painter of the 20th century, but exhibitions of his work are rare outside his homeland.

That makes English gallery Compton Verney’s new show, Masquerade and Spectacle: The Circus and the Travelling Fair, all the more welcome – especially as it is paired with a selection of works on a broadly similar theme by Yeats’ friend, the Austrian expressionist Oskar Kokoschka.

Yeats, born in 1871, was fascinated by circuses from an early age, when he would visit them when they came to his hometown of Sligo. Later, his family moved to London’s Earls Court, close to where Buffalo’s Bill Great Realistic Exhibition of Western Novelties was on show.

Yeats’ paintings capture an element of Irish society that was both pivotal but also on the wane – as cinema began to gain sway as a form of entertainment. His paintings show fairground characters such as the Barrel Man – half-in, half-out of a barrel, dodging out of the way of the sticks that are being hurled at him – and the Two Jockeys, hurtling around the ring balanced on a horse’s rump a white-faced clown at their side.

Yeats was also aware of the politics of the time. His 1910 picture An Occupation features a green-clad man carrying a heavy bucket of meat towards a bear’s cage while the animal pokes its nose through the bars in anticipation. The title refers to the man’s unglamorous, backstage job, but is thought also to tip its hat to the fact that Ireland was at the time ‘occupied’ by the British.

Compton Verney is unique among leading English galleries in that it is housed in an imposing stately home that was designed by Robert Adam in the 1760s. In 1993, in an advanced state of decay, it was bought by the Peter Moores Foundation, which spent the next 11 years (and an estimated £64m) transforming the property into a world-class art gallery, finally opening it to the public in 2004.

Compton Verney is seven miles east of Stratford-upon-Avon in Warwickshire, UK.
Jack B Yeats: Masquerade & Spectacle: The Circus and the Travelling Fair is on show in conjunction with Oskar Kokoschka: Exile and New Home 1938-1980 until 14 December.