![]() ![]() His stay in America was made possible by John Quinn, a wealthy Irish-American lawyer and indefatigable patron of the arts. After she returned to Ireland in the summer of 1908, her father never saw Lily again and only had a handful of reunions with WB. Once in New York, JBY simply refused to go home. But, according to another source, he had an "extremely rounded philosophy of life". His son's biographer, Roy Foster, describes him as "formidably articulate and relentlessly charming", but also "fundamentally self-centred" and "often inconsistent, even in his brilliantly articulated opinions." In WB Yeats's view, his father suffered from "an infirmity of will" that prevented him from putting his artistic talents to proper use. ![]() He was definitely a gifted painter, but was incapable of earning a living and the Yeats family grew up in financially-straitened circumstances, mainly in London's Bedford Park. He toyed briefly with a legal career before deciding to devote himself to art. The son of a Church of Ireland clergyman, he became a religious sceptic and an advocate of Irish nationalism, an enthusiasm he passed on to his children. He arrived in America in late-December 1907 and never went back, New York City becoming his adopted home for the last 14 years of his life. John Butler Yeats (JBY) was just months short of his 69th birthday when he decided to accompany his daughter Lily on a visit to New York where she was due to exhibit her craft work. 'Of plaster Saints' his beautiful mischievous head thrown back. 'This Land of Saints', and then as the applause died out, My father upon the Abbey stage, before him a raging crowd. John Butler Yeats: An Irishman in New York, 1907-1922 ![]()
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