| Yankel Feather | |
|---|---|
| Born | 21 June 1920 Liverpool |
| Died | 18 April 2009 (aged 88) Hove |
| Occupation | Painter |
| Parents | Rachael Michelovsky[1] (also known as Rachael (or Rose) Lewis), William Feather |
Yankel Feather, painter (born Liverpool 21 June 1920; died 18 April 2009[2]) member of Liverpool Academy of Arts and Newlyn Society of Artists. Paintings by Yankel Feather are in the public collections of the Royal Pavilion and the Walker Gallery. His work is publicly and privately collected. An expressionist painter. Early works are more formal in later works Yankel's syle becomes more expressive and was said to have changed as he began painting from memory. His subject matter continued to include still life painting and began to flourish in the more populated scenes of Liverpool dance halls or seascapes of his St Ives period. Today the Yankel Feather estate is handled by his partner and primary dealers GX Gallery in London.
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Expressionist painter Yankel Feather was born in Toxteth Liverpool in 1920, into a poor family as the youngest of seven children of Austrian-Russian parentage. He went to Harrington County Primary School and then to a Jewish secondary school. He had a hard childhood meeting his absentee father, an Austrian immigrant, only once and being confronted with the early death of his mother at the age of fourteen. Yankel started to paint at a young age and as such was prolific. Largely self taught Yankel spent much of his youth in the museums and galleries of his native Liverpool.
In 1937 he joined his older sister, Leah, in South London where he studied part time under the renowned potter, Heber Matthews Heber Matthews at Woolwich Polytechnic between 1937 and the outbreak of the Second World War.[3]
Feather returned to Merseyside during the War, where he worked at Rootes Aircraft Factory, and was conscripted into the Highland Light Infantry, leading to spells in Glasgow, London and Bournemouth. In his early life he was continuously struggling as he needed to earn a living and also to find time for his passion to become an artist. His first solo exhibition was at Gibbs Book Shop in Manchester in 1940. He became friends with Terry Frost in 1947. Frost later recalled: "I owe a lot to Yankel Feather, one of my first painter critics in 1947. I soon realised he was a bit of a Van Gogh person, full of talent, bursting with a trapped enthusiasm, supported by a genuine love of art and art history. I first saw his work when the Hannover Gallery had offered him a show. Wow! This was around 1948 and he was painting thickly, and with love, still lives of flowers."
“Full of talent, bursting with a trapped enthusiasm, supported by a genuine love of art and art history” - Sir Terry Frost ”
He acquired his artistic practice though observations of the great masters, such as Velasquez, Rembrandt and Degas in public galleries in Liverpool and London. He remembered their techniques and applied them in his art throughout his career. He took studios at Park Walk in Chelsea in the Forties and became part of the artistic bohemian fringe whilst working as a Telephone Operator. Feather exhibited at the renowned Helen Lessore's Beaux Arts Gallery in London during the 1950s.
In the 60s and 70s he was a well known person in the city owning night clubs and antique shops. During the time when Merseybeat hit the world his friends were Brian Epstein, The Beatles, Cilla Black, Adrian Henri, Arthur Ballard, George Jardine and many many more. While in Liverpool he exhibited with the Liverpool Academy of Art alongside Sam Walsh, Maurice Cockrill, Adrian Henri, Nicolas Horsfield and Mike Lawson. He attended various art schools. Whilst his works reminds us of Renoir, Degas and Lowry, they are very much his own style - strong, with lightness of brushstrokes over strong linear form with lots of movement.
Feather's Liverpool roots influence him their shadow both socially and professionally. Inspired by Lowry, whom he met at the Walker Art Gallery and visited at Mottram during the mid-1960s, Feather contrived from memory evocations of his working class roots. His later pictures of boys playing football on dockside waste land or of the vast edifices on the Mersey front, shared the documentary nostalgia of Lowry's mills and terraced streets. Feather also showed with perverse pride a coveted but damaged painting slashed by an irate John Lennon, whom Feather, an acquaintance of Brian Epstein, had evicted from The Basement. Another acquaintance, Peter Brown, an employee of the Beatles' organisation Apple, invited Feather into Savile Row premises in 1970 where he saw the break-up of the Beatles at first hand. Ringo Starr was one of many notable Liverpudlian owners of Feather's exuberant, poetic work.
He sold his club in Liverpool in 1967 and after practicing ten years as an antiques dealer he was able to retire to Cornwall in 197. Yankel moved to Cornwall where he became a life long friend of the abstract artist Sir Terry Frost. It was here that he started to come to public notice and gain recognition for the quality of his work. He lived near St Just in south-west Cornwall for 20 years, painting prolifically and exhibiting at the Salthouse and New Millennium Galleries in St Ives during the 1980s and 1990s.
Openly gay, but never camp, Feather found love with two long term partners late in life, Bill King whilst living in Cornwall and Terry Arbuckle who shared his studio home together at Hove in Brighton. He could express his sexuality in a series of simplified linear paintings which are show an anonymous and austere outline which cannot be seen in any other of his paintings. Today, Feather is listed in the directory of Modern British Painters and his work is enjoyed by many collectors, including Ringo Starr and Cilla Black. But, the artist himself reflected: “I am painting the best paintings of my life right now. That is the most important thing for me, more so than who buys the work”.
Yankel Feather’s paintings all come from distinctive periods of his life and work. His early years during the Mersey Beat days in Liverpool, depict rhythmical colourful movement in crowded dancehalls at a time when he was a club owner, just as the Beatles were breaking into the scene. Inspired by the atmosphere in the well-known Basement Club in Liverpool (set up by Feather in 1958) he has painted every aspect of dance: from the Twist during the II World War to Rock ‘n’ Roll, to decades of ballet shows. Alongside his numerous dancing figures; Feather’s canvasses explore Cornish landscapes and seascapes, market scenes from Morocco and views of a crowded Brighton beach. There is often a carefully constructed rhythm to his compositions as they are filled with Feather’s unique vivacity.
In contrast to the vibrant dancehall works, Yankel’s seascapes, painted during his prolific time in St Ives, are full of brooding atmosphere, captivating the magic coastline of Cornwall. Throughout his life, flowers were a recurrent subject matter and several delightful still life paintings tie the exhibition together, acting as a bridge between the vibrant dancehalls and the bleak British coastline. Yankel Feather knew what was important to him from a very early stage in life; he believed he was “born to be an artist. Despite being born into harsh poverty and having little academic training, Yankel was determined to pursue his career, and more importantly, his passion in painting. Painting almost always from memory, Yankel portrays a very personal and heartfelt representation. He relies on poetic colours when creating sumptuous still lives and atmospheric coastal landscapes. The artistic figure of Yankel Feather represents the charismatic flair of modernism at its best, mastered with confident and uninhibited brush strokes which some have linked to Degas. Many have seen similarities of Yankel’s work to the figurative paintings of his contemporary Fred Yates; Matisse, Renoir and Modigliani who also served as key influences.
“From Velasquez I learnt how to see, from Hilton I learned how to feel and from Fuselli I learned how to fly”.– Yankel Feather