1911 Jack B. Yeats Pictorial Map of Pirate Island

Jack Butler Yeats (August 29, 1871 - March 28, 1957) was an Irish artist and writer, significant in his own right, but often in the shadow of his older brother, the celebrated poet William Butler Yeats (1865 - 1939). Born in London, England, Yeats was the youngest son of Irish portraitist John Butler Yeats. He spent his childhood in Sligo, Ireland, with his maternal grandparents, and returned to his parents' house London in 1887. Beginning in around 1920, Yeats became a Modernist and Expressionist painter. While not politically active Yeats was sympathetic to the Irish Republican Cause. After Ireland became a free state in 1922, he represented Ireland in the 'Arts and Culture Division' of the 1924 Paris Summer Olympics, winning a silver for his work 'Swimming.' Some consider him the most important Irish artist of the 20th century. He also worked in theatre and literature, writing his own plays, books, and poems. He died in Dublin in 1957. He was married to Mary Tottenham in 1894. More by this mapmaker...