an exhibition of western worlds
featuring crafts, collaborations, rare books, music, drama, video, and exclusive art
presented by NUI Galway
Exhibition Opening
6pm Thursday 24 March
The Model, Sligo
W.B. Yeats always looked west. Yeats & the West discovers what it meant to him, and what this means for us.
Yeats & the West opens at the Model, Sligo, featuring an exciting programme of public talks, guided tours, and schools events.
24 March to 12 May 2016 The Model, Sligo
Curators Tours Thursdays at 1pm. Public Talks Thursdays at 6pm
Open: Tue-Sat 10am-5.30pm
Thurs: 10am-8pm
Fri: 12am-5pm
Mon: Closed
Through crafts, collaborations, and landscapes Yeats & the West tells the story of going west to find out who we really are.
This exhibition comes to the Model from NUI Galway, and explores Yeats’s life, work, and legacy through his connections to the west. Rare artworks, books, manuscripts, and exclusive images, photographs, and film feature in an exhibition that reveals the impact of western heritage on W.B. Yeats and the wider Yeats family. Their commitment to crafts and culture created a western revolution that shaped modern Ireland.
“Yeats always looked west. For him the west of Ireland was the wellspring of songs, stories, and folklore, the foundation of the Irish imagination. It was the landscape of his poetry and plays. Significant events of his life took place here; collaborations that formed his work were forged here. This western outlook even took him and the Abbey Theatre players as far as the American west. Yeats & the West tells this remarkable story and considers what the west meant to him, and what that means for us”, explains Dr Adrian Paterson, a Lecturer in English at NUI Galway and scholar of W.B. Yeats, who led the curation of the exhibition.
Presented in association with NUI Galway, Yeats & the West features research input from the university’s Moore Institute for the Humanities, exclusive materials from the James Hardiman Library, from the National Library of Ireland, and from the Model’s own collections. The exhibition represents NUI Galway’s continuing contribution to the Decade of Commemorations and to Yeats2015, the worldwide series of cultural events marking the poet’s 150th birthday.