Anne Yeats

Anne Butler Yeats (26 February 1919 – 4 July 2001) was an Irish painter, costume and stage designer.

Early and family life She was the daughter of the poet William Butler Yeats and Georgie Hyde-Lees, a niece of the painter Jack Butler Yeats, and of Lily Yeats and of Elizabeth Corbet Yeats. Her aunts were associated with the arts and crafts movement in Ireland and were associated with the Dun Emer Press, Cuala Press, and Dun Emer industries. Her brother Michael Yeats was a politician. She was known as "feathers" by her family.

Born in Dublin on 26 February 1919, her birth was commemorated by her father with the poem A Prayer for My Daughter. Anne Yeats spent her first 3 years between Ballylee, County Galway, and Oxford before her family moved to 82 Merrion Square, Dublin in 1922.

She attended St. Margaret's Hall, 50 Mespil Rd, and Nightingale Hall, Morehampton Rd Dublin. At the Abbey, she designed the sets and costumes for revivals of W.B. Yeats' plays The resurrection and On Baile's strand (1938).

In 1938 she designed the first production of W.B. Yeats' play Purgatory. One of her last designs was her father's last play, The Death of Cuchulain for the Lyric Theatre on the Abbey stage, in 1949.

Painting career She chose to move towards painting full-time beginning a brief study at the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art in 1941. In 1986, she donated documents concerning the Cuala Press to Trinity College Dublin.

Legacy The Royal Hibernian Academy held a retrospective of her work in 1995, as did the National Gallery of Ireland in 2002. She donated her collection of Jack B. Yeats' sketchbooks to the National Gallery of Ireland, leading to the creation of the Yeats Museum within the gallery. Her brother, Michael, in turn, donated her sketchbooks to the museum.

Work in collections The National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin The Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery, Dublin The Ulster Museum, Belfast Trinity College, Dublin Model Arts and Niland Gallery, Sligo The Arts Council of Ireland