Art is such a visual expression of the world, and artists imbue their emotions and experiences into the paintings that reach out and connect with you. As you may have read in my previous blogs, British Artist Fred Yates has had a personal impact on my life, both in my youth and as I have grown. His work surrounds me, in my personal and professional life, my question in this blog is: ‘Can we read the changes in Fred’s life, not just in his colour palette, approach and techniques but in the man himself from just two paintings?

Everyone has multiple facets to their personality and Fred’s early life helped form the quiet, reflective Fred characteristics. A strict upbringing at home with his disciplinarian religious parents, the loss of Arthur, his twin brother, in Operation Market Garden at Arnhem in 1944, and a bossy (controlling?) aunt in Worthing that he lived with for a period.

The lighter fun side or more expressive Fred Yates Paintings started to emerge once he threw off the formality of fulltime teaching and left his more rigid early life behind, starting to paint full time from 1969.

The following two paintings ‘The Crowd’ (1973) and ‘Celebration’ (Mid 2000’s) are in our private collection and sit in the same room, creating the platform to view these two uniquely Fred Yates Paintings and reflect on how his painting career and life evolved.

In stark contrast, within the crowd, many of the people are hugging & holding each other, caring for babies, standing close and showing affection, but not facing the viewer or artist. They seem to say, ‘this is affection, this is what affection looks like, but it is not directed to you, you are not included’. I could be completely wrong, but after living with this painting for 6 or 7 years it does give me that feeling of turning your back on someone, of soulful rejection, but strangely not of sadness or loss in this moment. it feels more matter of fact, like somebody saying, “that was my past”.

The emotion in this painting comes from the crowd. Appearing to be engaged by a show or performance, all looking on in the same direction, but Fred has not allowed us as viewers to take part in this show. Keeping us at a distance, we cannot get close to the action, engage or share in this moment, we are to stay at arm’s length, on the periphery, just outside of the frame.

Does this reflect how Fred felt, pushed out, marginalised? He certainly lived a simplistic, sparce lifestyle, once offering my mother a packing case for a seat in his cold cottage whilst they had tea, as he had just given my father his only chair! In these early formative years he had very little money, he lived on his own, compelled to express, create and paint, and at the beginning period of his career, with a need to become accepted.