In his paintings of the early 1920s, Jack Yeats surveyed the character and activities of the ordinary people of Western Ireland. He used a bold drawing in outline that is almost caricature, which he then painted directly with strong colours. Here a man stares over the parapet of the bridge at Sligo into the muddy water of the river. His deportment and expression suggest a particular type of local character. Yeats grew up near Sligo, and knew the people well. In about 1925 Yeats took up a quite different manner of painting, with lighter colours, particularly blues, and looser shapes, and with imaginary subjects from Irish history.Jack Yeats was the younger brother of the poet W.B. Yeats.