Ira Hubert Yeager, Jr. was born in Bellingham in 1938, to the renowned fishing guide, sportsman and founder of Yeager’s Sporting Goods. Not sharing his father’s sportsman passions, Ira Jr. was enthralled with art at an early age.
“All I wanted to do was sit on the beach and draw.”
Graduating from Bellingham High School in 1956, Ira left Bellingham and embarked on a lifelong journey to explore his artistic perspective and to hone his skill in expressing it. Ira enrolled in the California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland, California, and later the Art Institute of San Francisco. The San Francisco Bay Area was the epicenter of the bourgeoning style later dubbed the Bay Area Figurative Movement. Led by Richard Diebenkorn, Elmer Bischoff, and Nathan Oliviera, the movement was inspired by the energy of Abstract Expressionism and characterized by bold color, loose composition, and non-literal representation of subjects.
Over the next twenty years, Ira lived in the south of France, Italy, Ibiza, Morocco, and Greece. There, he experienced something life-changing: “Coming from the land of Christmas trees and snow-capped mountains, somehow I felt misplaced…. When I found the Mediterranean, an awakening and an epiphany emerged — I was home.”
Ira studied at the Galleria dell’Accademia di Firenze in Florence, Italy, and joined an artist collective called Gruppo Numero, where he set about developing his own voice and approach in capturing the people, animals and landscapes - both real and imagined - that surrounded him.
For ten years, Ira lived in to Corfu, Greece, where he established a studio and immersed himself in village life, much of which had remained the same for centuries: “… living in Corfu, Greece, was the closest thing to living in an 18th-century village.” Paintings from this period showcase Yeager’s distinctive treatment of contrasts: the ruggedness of rural life rendered with a soft color palette; the exotic paired with the familiar; simplicity imbued with self-awareness; and often, a slight hint that things may not be what they seem.
Another life-changing experience was living in Santa Fe, New Mexico, in the mid-1960s. Consistent with the style emerging from his time in Europe, Ira continued to focus on interesting textures, bold colors and images of animals in his compositions. It was in Santa Fe that Ira began a series of paintings depicting Plains Indians in ceremonial clothing.
For Ira Yeager, the painting of Plains Indians was non-literal and creative: it was a “blending of abstraction into figuration” . Ira’s rendering of beads, feathers, fur, leather and facial features was a framework for expressing emotion through the use of color, texture and contours.
With all endeavors, practice makes perfect, and Ira aimed to perfect his craft. “Repetition of images is like learning to play a perfect song. If I could play a perfect song, it would be Beethoven’s ‘Moonlight Sonata’. Yes, I have done some virtuoso Indians in 40 years. Only the viewer would know.” Ira acknowledged that his paintings were romanticization’s of Native American cultures, and that removing a person from his/her historical context may be controversial. Yet he stood by his work: “Throughout my career I have painted a variety of subjects in different styles, both abstract and realistic. However, there have been two focal points which have remained constant in my oeuvre: The culture and history of 18th century France and secondly, the same of 19th century American Indians, of whom I have done many paintings. Both periods reflect great historical contrasts involving tragedy.”
Ira passed away in January 2022 at his home in Calistoga.
