Tuesday, March 8, 2011

A Horseman Enters a Town at Night


The Jack B Yeats show which I saw in the Model, Sligo recently includes two previously unseen paintings from the estate of the late author Graham Greene, recently sold by Christie’s of London.

The works, A Horseman Enters a Town at Night, 1948 and Man in a Room Thinking, 1947, were purchased by a private collector, who very generously made them available to The Model for the duration of Jack B Yeats -The Outsider.

Horses feature quite often in his paintings. In the early paintings they appear in his horse racing and circus pictures and in his later work horses often seem to be mysterious other worldly visitations.

Above is A Horseman Enters a Town at Night which fetched almost £350,000 when sold recently. When you look at it you can't help but think of those famous lines by his brother (written around ten years before Jack painted the picture).

Cast a cold Eye
On Life, on Death.
Horseman, pass by!


2 comments:

Mari G said...

Hi Michael
Interesting connection.
I absolutely love those lines: "Cast a cold eye" etc.
Hope your book is going well.

Michael Farry said...

Yes indeed Mari. Especially when you think that "cast a cold eye on life" was hardly the way W.B. lived his life.