John Butler Yeats (Born Tullylish 16 March 1839, died 3 February 1922) was an Irish artist and the father of William Butler Yeats and Jack Butler Yeats. He is probably best known for his portrait of the young William Butler Yeats which is one of a number of his pictures in the Yeats museum in the National Gallery of Ireland. His portrait of John O'Leary (1904) is considered to be his masterpiece (Raymond Keaveney 2002).

Educated in Trinity College Dublin John Butler Yeats began his career as a lawyer and devilled briefly with Isaac Butt before he took up painting in 1867 and studied at Hearthleys Art School. His early work is largerly lost, having been destroyed by fire in WWII, but he seems never to have had no trouble getting commissions and his later portraits show great sensitivity to the sitter. However, he was a poor business man and was never financially secure. He moved house frequently and swapped several times between England and Ireland. At the age of 69 he moved to New York where he was friendly with members of the Ashcan school of painters.

External links and references

• Martyn Anglesea (2003), Yeats, John Butler in Brian Lalor (Ed.) The Encyclopedia of Ireland. Dublin: Gill and Macmillian. ISBN 0-7171-3000-2.
• Bruce Arnold (1977), Irish Art, a concise history. London: Thames and Hudson. ISBN 050020148X
• Raymond Keaveney (2002), National Gallery of Ireland, Essential Guide. London: Scala. ISBN 1857592670.
• Biographical note in the Princess Grace Irish Library