John Butler Yeats

John (known as Jack) Butler Yeats (29 August 1871 – 28 March 1957) was an Irish artist and Olympic medalist. W.B. Yeats was his brother, and portraitist John Butler Yeats was his father.

Butler's early style was that of an illustrator; he only began to work regularly in oils in 1906. His early pictures are simple lyrical depictions of landscapes and figures, predominantly from the west of Ireland—especially of his boyhood home of Sligo. Yeats's work contains elements of Romanticism.

Besides painting, Yeats had a significant interest in theatre and in literature. He was a close friend of Samuel Beckett. He designed sets for the Abbey Theatre, and three of his own plays were also produced there. He wrote novels in a stream of consciousness style that Joyce acknowledged, and also many essays. His literary works include The Careless Flower, The Amaranthers (much admired by Beckett), Ah Well, A Romance in Perpetuity, And To You Also, and The Charmed Life. Yeats's paintings usually bear poetic and evocative titles. Indeed, his father recognized that Jack was a far better painter than he, and also believed that 'some day I will be remembered as the father of a great poet, and the poet is Jack'. He was elected a member of the Royal Hibernian Academy in 1916.

He died in Dublin in 1957, and was buried in Mount Jerome Cemetery.