John Butler Yeats
Date: Irish artist, 1839–1922
Biography: An accomplished portraitist and father of the poet William Butler Yeats, John Butler Yeats came to New York at age 69. He fell in love with the bustling city and remained there for the rest of his life. He grew close to the painters of the Ashcan School, especially John Sloan, who memorably depicted Yeats, an inveterate story-teller, holding forth for his dinner companions in the painting, Yeats at Petitpas' from 1910–1914. Petitpas was the boarding house, run by two French sisters, where Yeats resided on the bohemian lower West Side of the city.