Art History Talk Series
Death and Dying in the Work of Jack B Yeats

Guest Speaker Róisín Kennedy

Death and dying were central themes in the work of Jack B Yeats, both in his paintings and in his plays and novels, where they were treated both with humour and pathos. This lecture will consider why this subject was so significant in his visual art and how Yeats presented the themes in different ways across his oeuvre, in such works as An Island Funeral, 1923, The Model Sligo, to Death for Only One, 1937, O’Brien Collection, Chicago to Sick Bed, 1950, currently on loan to the Butler Gallery. The lecture will also reflect on how the artist’ s contemporaries responded to such work and assess to what extent the theme related to wider issues in Irish and international affairs.

About the Speaker

Róisín Kennedy is Associate Professor in the School of Art History and Cultural Policy at University College Dublin. She is former Yeats Curator at the National Gallery of Ireland. Her research focuses on modern Irish art and its contexts. She co-edited Harry Clarke and Artistic Visions of the Irish State with Angela Griffith and Margeurite Helmers, Irish Academic Press, 2019 and her monograph, Art and the Nation State, The Reception of Modern Art in Ireland, was published by Liverpool University Press in 2021 and more recently she edited Visualizing the Celtic Revival. The Arts and Crafts Movement in Ireland-selected writings by Nicola Gordon Bowe, Four Courts Press, 2024.