3rd International John Butler Yeats Seminar

Registration

Schedule

Saturday, September 22
 9 a.m.  Registration
 9:30  Opening address
10 a.m. Declan Foley: The early drawings and cartoons of Jack B. Yeats
11-11:15  Coffee break
11:15 Lucy McDiarmid: WBY, Lady Gregory, and Whistler’s Peacock Room
11:45 Ann Saddlemyer: The Yeats women artists
12:20-2:15 p.m. Lunch break
 2:15  p.m. Cathy E. Fagan: Jeanne Robert Foster and the rmory Show: the 1913 art revolution from New York to Chicago
 3  Maureen Murphy: Of loyal nature and of noble mind: Jack B. Yeats and his siblings
 3:45  Open discussion
 7-11 Social and dinner (venue, cost to be announced)

Sunday, September, 23
10 a.m.  Hilary Pyle: Many Ferries and There is Not Night: Directions in the work of Jack B. Yeats
11-11:15 Coffee break
11:15 John Purser: A new theory of vision? —Jack B. Yeats and the Gaelic environment
Noon  Edward O’Shea: The artist and the raconteur: JBY and WBY as famous talkers, with an introduction by Andrew McGowan
 1 p.m. Richard Londraville and Eileen Egan-Mack: poems by and in the style of Jeanne Robert Foster
 2  Rick Foster: Fastened to a dying animal: a dramatic portrayal of WBY.
 3 Visit to the John Butler Yeats and Jeanne Robert Foster graves at Chestertown Rural Cemetery

Location

Chestertown is 5 minutes off  of Northway I-87, approximately 90 minutes from Albany. There is a bus service from NYC’s Port Authority Terminal on Trailways 1-800-858-8555) and Amtrak train service from NYC Penn Station to Albany/Rensselaer  (1-800-USA-RAIL)

Nearest Airports: Albany and Montreal.

Approximate travel time from airports by car: Albany  1.5 hours; Montreal 3 hours; NYC 4 hours. From  I-87 exit 25 or 26,  left off the ramp onto Route 8 West for about one mile. At the blinking light,  left onto Route 9 South.

    Registration and fee for the seminar does not include reservations and costs for travel, accommodation and meals. Chestertown and the surrounding Adirondack area offer a wide range of accommodation and restaurants. For any who wish to have an extended stay or take their family, there are many recreational facilities to suit all ages. The following Web addresses and telephone numbers will be of assistance in making reservations for your visit to the Adirondacks in Fall 2007. We look forward to meeting you there!
North Warren Chamber of Commerce
Adirondack Lakes and Rivers  1-888-404-2722
Schroon Lake Chamber of Commerce 1-800-SCHROON
Gore Mountain Region Chamber of Commerce  1-800-880-GORE
The Chester Inn   (518) 494-4148
Panther Mountain Inn  (518) 494-2401
Friends Lake Inn   (518) 494-4751
Landon Hill Bed & Breakfast   (518) 494-2599
Further accommodation details available 
Adirondacks Resource Travel Guide
Yahoo Directory listings

The John Butler Yeats Seminars

     The First International John Butler Yeats Seminar , “Prodical Father: John Butler Yeats: His Family and His American Friends” took place in Chestertown  September 7-9, 2001 under the auspices of The Historical Society of the Town of Chester, the Australian Yeats Society Beyond Ben Bulben, and the Yeats Society of New York. The success of this event induced the organizers to hold a JBY Seminar every three years. The 2001 title came from the seminal 1978 biography by William M. Murphy. For many years JBY was “the father of all the Yeats,” and this description by Ezra Pound was quoted by many authors of works on his son, William Butler Yeats.

                 It sometimes appears  that Lily, Lollie and Jack Butler Yeats are treated more as “the siblings of WBY” than as individuals and artists in their own right.  Murphy is one of many scholars who set Yeatsian matters to rights not only with his biography, but also with the publication of The Yeats Family and The Pollexfens of Sligo (1971) and Family Secrets: William Butler Yeats and His Relatives (1995).  JBY enjoyed tremendously what his artist son, Jack B., says is the only art: “The art of living.” The many portraits by JBY give important insight into both the physical and metaphysical characteristics of his subjects. Like his sons and daughters, JBY should not be studied in isolation, but in the context of the Irish Renaissance. In his later years, JBY was involved in introducing Americans to  ‘Art’ and the important role the artist plays in society. In this he was joined by John Quinn and Adirondack poet Jeanne Robert Foster. The three did much to assure the development of art and the artists they encouraged in Europe and America. Yeats and Foster nurtured with advice and friendship, Quinn thorough purchases and other funding.

                              The John Butler Yeats Seminars are intended to further knowledge of the work and life of JBY, his family, and their many contemporaries and friends. Some of these notables, such as Jeanne Robert Foster and John Quinn, have been overlooked or relegated to minor roles by scholars and students of literature and art. JBY, Jeanne Robert Foster, and John Quinn interconnect the Irish Renaissance of literature, art and politics with American, English and European literature, art and politics as they developed in the early modernist era. Their manifold correspondence is peppered with quotes, from and about, many artists, poets and writers whose work spans two centuries of civilization.

Recommended Reading

• Arnold, Bruce.  Jack Yeats: A Biography.  New Haven and London:         Yale University Press, 1998.
• Cullen, Fintan & Murphy, William M. The Drawings of John Butler       Yeats. Albany: Albany Inst. History & Art, 1987.
• Foster, Jeanne R. Neighbors of Yesterday. 1st Edition 1916, Facsimile:  Schenectady: Riedinger & Riedinger,1963. Reprinted: West       Cornwall: Locust Hill Press, 2002.
• Gordon, Robert. John Butler Yeats and John Sloan: The Record of        a Friendship. Dublin: The Dolmen Press, 1978
• Lewis, Gifford.  The Yeats Sisters and the Cuala. Dublin: Irish       Academic  Press, 1994.
• Londraville, Janis. Ed. Prodigal Father Revisited: Writers And Artists in the World of JBY. West Cornwall: Locust Hill Press, 2003.
• Londraville, Richard & Janis. Dear Yeats, Dear Pound, Dear Ford :       Jeanne Robert Foster and Her Circle of Friends. Syracuse:       Syracuse  University Press, 2001.
• —  John Quinn: Selected Irish Writers from His Library. West       Cornwall:  Locust Hill Press, 2001.
• Murphy, William M.  Prodigal Father: The life of John Butler Yeats          (1839 –1922). Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1978. Reprinted       Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2001.
• —  The Yeats Family and the Pollexfens of Sligo. Dublin: The Dolmen Press, 1971. —  Family Secrets: William Butler Yeats and His Relatives. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1995.
• McGuinness, Nora A.  The Literary Universe of Jack B. Yeats.       Washington, D.C.,: Catholic University of America Press, 1992.
• McHugh, Roger, Ed. Jack B. Yeats: A Centenary Gathering. Dublin:  The Dolmen Press, 1971.
• Purser, John. The Literary Works of Jack B. Yeats. Gerrards Cross,         Bucks, U.K.: Colin Smythe Ltd.; New York: Barnes & Noble,          1991.
• Pyle, Hilary. Jack B. Yeats: A Biography. London: Routledge & Kegan  Paul Ltd.,1970. Revised edit. London: André Deutsch Ltd, 1989.
• —  Yeats: Portrait of an Artistic Family. London: Merrel Holbertson         Publishers Ltd., in assoc. with the National Gallery of Ireland, 1997.
• —  The Different Worlds of Jack B. Yeats: His Cartoons and        Illustrations . Irish Academic Press Blackrock, Co. Dublin, 1994
• Reid, B. L.  The Man from New York: John Quinn and His Friends. New York: Oxford University Press, 1968.
• Riedinger-Johnston, Noel. Ed,. Adirondack Portraits. Syracuse:        Syracuse University Press, 1986.
• Saddlemyer Ann, Ed. Theatre Business: The Correspondence of the        First Abbey Theatre Directors. William Butler Yeats, Lady        Gregory and J.  M. Synge. Gerrards Cross, Bucks, UK.:        Colin Smythe Ltd,; PA,  U.S.: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1982
• —   Becoming George: The Life of Mrs W. B. Yeats. Oxford University Press, Oxford U.K ,2002.

From every manor-house and cabin ascends the incense of pleasant talk; it is that in which we most excel. With us all journeys end in talkers' meeting. . .France has her art and literature, England her House of Lords, and America her vast initiative; we have our conversation.    --            John Butler Yeats, Essays Irish and American, 1918
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