Yvonne Jammet (1900 – 30 August 1967) was a French landscape painter and sculptor, who spent her career in Ireland. With her husband, Louis Jammet, she ran the well-known Dublin-based French restaurant,

Restaurant Jammet Jammet Restaurant, also called Restaurant Jammet () or The Jammet Hotel and Restaurant, was a French restaurant located in Dublin, Ireland between 1901 and 1967. According to a 1990s ''Dublin Tourism'' brochure, the "famous Jammet's Restaurant ...

Life

Yvonne Jammet was born Yvonne Auger in 1900, in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

. Her parents were Félix Auger and Catherine (née Jammet), who were both restaurateurs. She studied art at the

Académie Julian The () was a private art school for painting and sculpture founded in Paris, France, in 1867 by French painter and teacher Rodolphe Julian (1839–1907). The school was active from 1868 through 1968. It remained famous for the number and qual ...

and the Atelier

Jean-Paul Laurens Jean-Paul Laurens (; 28 March 1838 – 23 March 1921) was a romanticism French painter and sculptor, and he is one of the last major exponents of the French Academic style. Biography Laurens was born in Fourquevaux and was a pupil of Léon ...

. She married her third cousin, Louis Jammet, with whom she moved to Dublin in 1928 to take over running of his father's restaurant on Nassau Street. The couple had two sons and two daughters. Jammet died whilst visiting the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

Lowell, Massachusetts Lowell () is a city in Massachusetts, United States. Alongside Cambridge, Massachusetts, Cambridge, it is one of two traditional county seat, seats of Middlesex County, Massachusetts, Middlesex County. With an estimated population of 115,554 in ...

, on 30 August 1967. She is buried at

Deans Grange Cemetery Dean's Grange Cemetery (; also spelled ''Deansgrange'') is situated in the suburban area of Deansgrange in Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown, County Dublin, Ireland. Since it first opened in 1865, over 150,000 people have been buried there. It is, toge ...

, Blackrock.

Restaurant Jammet

Restaurant Jammet was popular amongst artists, writers, actors, and business owners. Amongst the patrons of the restaurant were

Orson Welles George Orson Welles (May 6, 1915 – October 10, 1985) was an American director, actor, writer, producer, and magician who is remembered for his innovative work in film, radio, and theatre. He is among the greatest and most influential film ...

Tyrone Power Tyrone Edmund Power III (May 5, 1914 – November 15, 1958) was an American actor. From the 1930s to the 1950s, Power appeared in dozens of films, often in swashbuckler roles or romantic leads. His better-known films include ''Jesse James (193 ...

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W. B. Yeats William Butler Yeats (, 13 June 186528 January 1939), popularly known as W. B. Yeats, was an Irish poet, dramatist, writer, and literary critic who was one of the foremost figures of 20th-century literature. He was a driving force behind the ...

Jack Butler Yeats Jack Butler Yeats RHA (29 August 1871 – 28 March 1957) was an Irish artist. Born into a family of impoverished Anglo-Irish landholders, his father was the painter John Butler Yeats, and his brother was the poet W. B. Yeats. Jack B. was bo ...

Harry Kernoff Harry Aaron Kernoff (9 January 1900 – 25 December 1974) was an Irish genre-painter. He depicted Dublin street and pub scenes and Dublin landmarks, as well as producing landscapes, woodcut illustrations, portraits, and set designs. Early ...

, and Seán O'Sullivan. As an artist, and patron and arts, Jammet decorated the restaurant, most notably the remodelling of the upstairs in 1946 with architect Noel Moffet to a minimalist looks with curved glass-block screens and exposed steelwork. Through his staging of a number of French plays in autumn 1938 at the

Gate Theatre The Gate Theatre is a theatre on Cavendish Row in Dublin, Ireland. It was founded in 1928. History Beginnings The Gate Theatre was founded in 1928 by Hilton Edwards and Micheál MacLiammóir with Daisy Bannard Cogley and Gearóid Ó Lochla ...

Micheál MacLiammóir Micheal is a masculine given name. It is sometimes an anglicized form of the Irish names Micheál, Mícheál and Michéal; or the Scottish Gaelic name Mìcheal. It is also a spelling variant of the common masculine given name '' Michael'', and is ...

became close friends with the Jammets. When Jammet and MacLiammóir visited Paris at the same time, they would attend the theatre together. MacLiammóir described Jammet as "exquisite, dark and smiling, a portrait by Renoir miraculously come to life in the glooms of twentieth-century Dublin."

Artistic career

Jammet was a member of

The White Stag group The White Stag Group was a group of artists centred on the painters Basil Rakoczi and Kenneth Hall. Founded in London in 1935, the group moved to Ireland in 1939 and stayed until after the Second World War where they gained Irish members like Th ...

, a modernist

avant-garde In the arts and literature, the term ''avant-garde'' ( meaning or ) identifies an experimental genre or work of art, and the artist who created it, which usually is aesthetically innovative, whilst initially being ideologically unacceptable ...

group. In 1943, she exhibited portraits, still-lives, and landscapes, at

Victor Waddington Victor Waddington (1907 - 1981) was a British art dealer, active in Dublin and then London, an early advocate for the work of Jack Yeats and Henri Hayden. He was the father of fellow art dealers, Leslie and Theo Waddington. Career He started th ...

's Gallery, South Anne Street. Waddington held a number of his celebrations at Restaurant Jammet. At one of these occasions in 1950, Jack Butler Yeats was awarded the French

Legion of Honour The National Order of the Legion of Honour ( ), formerly the Imperial Order of the Legion of Honour (), is the highest and most prestigious French national order of merit, both military and Civil society, civil. Currently consisting of five cl ...

. Jammet exhibited three works in the 1950

Irish Exhibition of Living Art The Irish Exhibition of Living Art (IELA; ) was a yearly exhibition of Irish abstract expressionism and avant-garde Irish art that was started in 1943 by Mainie Jellett. Background World War II Ireland During World War II, Ireland maintai ...

, ''Saint-Jérôme d'Ax'' (1947), ''Quillan'' (1948) and ''Ax-les-Thermes''. A 1951 exhibition at Waddington's showed Jammet's wood carvings and paintings. The subject of her work was often religious, such as the carved sanctuary figures of the Sacred Heart and of Our Lady in the Church of Our Lady of the Rosary,

Limerick Limerick ( ; ) is a city in western Ireland, in County Limerick. It is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Munster and is in the Mid-West Region, Ireland, Mid-West which comprises part of the Southern Region, Ireland, Southern Region. W ...

. She carved ''The twelve tribes'' for the Jewish synagogue in

Terenure Terenure (), originally called ''Roundtown'', is a middle class suburb of Dublin in Ireland. It is located in the city's D6 and D6W postal districts. The population of all electoral divisions labelled as Terenure was 17,972 as of the 2022 ce ...

, Dublin. After the rebuilding of the Cross to St Michael's church,

Dún Laoghaire Dún Laoghaire ( , ) is a suburban coastal town in County Dublin in Ireland. It is the administrative centre of the county of Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown. The town was built up alongside a small existing settlement following 1816 legislation th ...

following a fire, Jammet donated carved stations of the cross. In 1953, her work was featured in an exhibition of contemporary Irish art in the

National Library of Wales The National Library of Wales (, ) in Aberystwyth is the national legal deposit library of Wales and is one of the Welsh Government sponsored bodies. It is the biggest library in Wales, holding over 6.5 million books and periodicals, and the l ...

. She was also exhibited at the contemporary Irish art at An Tostal exhibition,

Bray Bray may refer to: Places France * Bray, Eure, in the Eure ''département'' * Bray, Saône-et-Loire, in the Saône-et-Loire ''département'' * Bray-Dunes, in the Nord ''département'' * Bray-en-Val, in the Loiret ''département'' * Bray-et-Lû ...

in 1954, and with the Institute of the Sculptors of Ireland in 1956.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Jammet, Yvonne 1900 births 1967 deaths Artists from Paris French restaurateurs French women restaurateurs 20th-century French sculptors French women painters Académie Julian French emigrants to Ireland 20th-century French women sculptors