Jack B Yeats painting fetches €1.4m at auction

Despite record-equaling price, Shouting fails to reach estimated price

Shouting by Jack B. Yeats painted in 1950, late in his career.

Shouting, an epic large scale work by Jack B. Yeats, made a hammer price of €1.4m at auction tonight.

The painting had been estimated at €1.5m to €2m, making it the most expensively estimated Irish artwork to come to sale in Ireland. Painted in 1950 this visionary work, painted late in his career, is considered to be one of his finest achievements.

The painting was sold at Whyte's sale of Important Irish Art in Dublin tonight and ranks as one of the most expensive Yeats paintings ever sold. 

At the sale of the Ernie O'Malley Collection at Whyte's in Dublin in 2019 Reverie and Evening in Spring, both by Yeats, made €1.4 and €1.3 million respectively. In 2001 The Whistle of a Jacket made £1.4m (€1.65m) at Christie's in London and The Wild Ones by Yeats made £1.2m (€1.42m) at Sotheby's in 1999.

The winter selling season of Irish art has proved to be spectacular so far. Sales at Sotheby's, de Veres and Bonhams last week achieved an aggregate of around €7m. Whyte's will add around another €2m to that total. With big sales at Morgan O'Driscoll on November 30 and at James Adam in Dublin on December 8 in the offing, the winter selling season for Irish art is set to surpass €10m easily.

Irish women artists fared particularly well at Whyte's. The Fortune Teller by Grace Henry made €37,000 at hammer over a top estimate of €7,000; A Cove in Lake Garda by Letitia Hamilton made €17,000 over a top estimate of €12,000; The Stringagh (Co. Meath) by Nano Reid made €12,000 over a top estimate of €8,000.