Fred Yates

Frederick Joseph Yates was an English artist. Inspired by the Manchester painter L.S. Lowry, Yates set out to paint pictures about the lives of ordinary people: "... It is the man in the street that I'm after, whom I feel closest to, with whom I want to make friends and enter into confidence and connivance, and he is the one I want to please and enchant by means of my work". Despite his reclusive nature, his paintings combined sharp observations of people going about their daily lives with strong, impressionist colours and expressive brushwork. His paintings are included in many private and public collections including Brighton and Hove Art Gallery, Liverpool University, the University of Warwick, Torquay Art Gallery and Russell Coates Gallery Bournemouth.

Fred Yates was born in Urmston, Lancashire, England in 1922. He began his working life as an insurance clerk but this career was cut short by the Second World War, during which he served with the Grenadier Guards. His twin brother was posted missing in action during the failed attempt to capture the bridge at Arnhem during Operation Market Garden in September 1944.

The loss of his brother had a profound effect on Yates and the sense of isolation made him fearful of close relationships throughout his life. Nonetheless, it gave him the resolve to give up insurance work and, against his family's wishes, become an artist. With a serviceman's grant he enrolled at Bournemouth Teacher Training College where he received a formal education in drawing, printmaking and painting and won a scholarship to Rome. He then taught in Devon and the South Coast for the next 20 years, a profession which brought some security, but which he disliked enormously. His shyness and gentle manner made it impossible to maintain any discipline in the classroom and the only way he could keep control was to embark on painting demonstrations where he could lose himself in his work and try not to notice the pupils behind him. Nonetheless he continued painting in his own right and in 1954 came second to L.S. Lowry for his painting of Brighton and Hove Albion Football Club in a competition organised by the Football Association. The painting is now in the collection of Brighton Museum and Art Gallery

Text courtesy of Wikipedia, 2023