The Yeatses in New York
One hundred years ago today … William Butler Yeats and George Hyde-Lees Yeats kept busy during their New York stay: lectures, luncheons, dinners, teas, and sessions of automatic writing. On February 22nd, depending on which chronicler one believes, they either had tea with WBY’s father, the painter John Butler Yeats, plus his friends Matha Bellinger and Frans Bellinger (Murphy 508)–or WBY fell ill and missed a dinner with editors of The Dial (Kelly 208). Of course, both are possible.
There were several factors and several actors behind the Yeatses’ trip to the US. Jack Butler Yeats had been living in New York for several years and had fallen into financial straits. So John Quinn, a New York lawyer, art patron and impresario, helped arrange WBY’s lecture tour with the purpose of raising funds. The trip also served as an opportunity for WBY to introduce his wife and father for the first time. Sometime in February, George Hyde-Lees Yeats sat for JBY, who produced this pencil drawing:
George Hyde-Lees Yeats by Jack Butler Yeats. February, 1920. Collection of Michael B. Yeats. Reproduced in Murphy, William M. Prodigal Father: The Life Of John Butler Yeats (1839-1922) p. 506.
JBY was known to frequent a restaurant on West 29th Street, the Petitpas. A painting by George Bellows dated 1914-16 shows JBY (with beard) in the center of the café crowd.
“Petitpas or artists' evening,” George Bellows, 1914-1916. Boston Public Library. Digital Commonwealth.
Throughout February, 1920, as WBY trekked to points north including Toronto, North Hampton, and Poughkeepsie for lectures, George Hyde-Lees Yeats routinely walked from the Algonquin on 43rd down to the Petitpas to visit. Perhaps she was motivated, partly, by her intense disdain for the New York women she was meeting. (See Murphy 507.)