Latent Emissions, Chakaia Booker
Jack B. Yeats, Driftwood in a Cave, 1948
Jack B. Yeats (Irish, 1871–1957), Driftwood in a Cave, 1948, Oil on canvas, 14 x 21 inches (canvas). Gift of the Donald and Marilyn Keough Foundation, 2018.005.003
Produced late in the artist’s career, Driftwood in a Cave shows all the vigor and expression of Jack B. Yeats’s most accomplished work. He was born in London to an Irish portraitist and was sent back to County Sligo to be raised by his grandparents. At age sixteen, he rejoined his family in England; by 1911, he was back in Ireland with his English wife. He began his career as an illustrator, only taking up oil painting in his thirties. It took him another twenty years to arrive at this bold, expressionistic style. By the time he painted Driftwood in a Cave, he had achieved a good measure of success and renown, although he had lost his wife and several members of his family and reportedly felt isolated.
In this scene, he focused on a solitary figure striding through the mouth of a cave toward the light with green waves lapping at the shore in the distance. The man is silhouetted against a pale sky daubed with bright yellow and thin, dry dashes of blue. The stark contrast between the dark interior and the bright sea heightens the tension between the foreground and the background. The brushstrokes are energetic, even violent, and the color harmonies of blue, mauve, and ochre hint at something sinister.