Jack Butler Yeats, R.H.A.

Mrs Ivan Guthrie in 1925;
Arthur Tooth & Sons, London;
George Stacpoole, Limerick, where purchased by the present owner circa 1972

London, Goupil Gallery, 1925, no.25

Hilary Pyle, Jack Butler Yeats, A Catalogue Raisonné of the Oil Paintings, Vol. I., Andre Deutsch, London 1992, no.299, p.273 (not illustrated)

The panel is slightly bowed. The surface may benefit from a light clean otherwise the work appears in good original condition. Under ultraviolet light there appear to be no signs of retouching. Held in a gilt plaster frame under glass.
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It was in 1925, the year of the present work, that Yeats made his steadfast commitment to painting, severing his ties with the Cuala Press and his print illustrations. It marked the year of his maturity as an artist, when he fully realised a new direction in his painting - freer and more expressive - which grew ever more intense as the years passed. That something had dramatically changed was a very conscious realisation. It was then that he told his brother 'I am the first living painter in the world' (letter to William Butler Yeats, 31 October 1925) - when he no longer felt confined to the descriptive lines that had defined his career thus far. 

This transition can be seen in The Trotter, where the looser, more gestural brushstrokes and flash of colour, seen in the yellow in the sky, hint at the greater abandonment that was to characterise his later work. The horse too seems to symbolise this new direction - a favourite motif of Yeats, it appears dynamic and free here, cantering across the composition with its ears and mane blowing in the wind, boldly silhouetted against the sky. The rider, leaning back, appears to struggle to keep control.