 |
| Yankel Feather © GXgallery |
Yankel Feather was a
British painter, he was born in Liverpool on 21st June 1920 to Austro-Russian
parents as one of seven and died on 18th April 2009. Yankel was born in Toxteth, into a poor family as the youngest of seven children. He
went to Harrington County Primary School and later to a Jewish secondary
school. Feather met his absentee father, an Austrian immigrant, only once. He
was confronted at the age of fourteen with the premature death of his mother
and took up painting after many visits to the Walker Art Gallery. In 1937
Feather joined his sister Leah in south London. He studied part-time under the
potter Heber Matthews at Woolwich Polytechnic between 1937 and the outbreak of
the Second World War.
Yankel was one of the most
exuberant gay characters of Liverpool’s 1960s art scene. In the early 60s
Feather opened the infamous coffee bar and club called The Basement in Mount
Pleasant. Roy Adams a former guardsman and amateur wrestler became a bouncer at
the Basement for eight years before owning his own clubs, including the Cavern.Decorated
with ship’s beams, iron gates, Elizabethan chairs and African images, it was only
a matter of time before the club became popular among those in the arts and
beat scene. Regulars included John Lennon, who scratched one of Mr Feather’s
paintings after being asked to stop bashing out Roll Over Beethoven on the
club’s piano. Yankel later showed the coveted but damaged painting with perverse pride. Feather sold his club in
Liverpool in 1967 and after trading for ten years in antiques he was able to
retire to Cornwall in 1977. He became a lifelong friend of the abstract artist Sir
Terry Frost. It was here that Feather started to come to public notice and gain
recognition for the quality of his work.
 |
| Harrington Board School by Yankel Feather ©GXgallery |
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. Feather's Liverpool
roots influenced him both socially and professionally. Inspired by Lowry, whom
he met at the Walker Art Gallery and visited at Mottram during the mid-1960s. Also inspired
by the atmosphere in his Basement Club in Liverpool he painted every aspect of dance: from the
Twist during World War II to Rock ‘n’ Roll, to decades of ballet shows.
 |
| Yankel Feather in his studio © GXgallery |
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.
He was a member of the Liverpool Academy of Arts and the Newlyn Society of
Artists. Paintings by Feather are in the public collections of the Royal
Pavilion and the Walker Art Gallery. He was an expressionist painter. His early
works were more formal, than his later works Feather's style became more
expressive and changed as he began painting from memory. His subject matter
included still life, populated scenes of Liverpool dance halls, and seascapes
of his St Ives period.
Openly gay, Feather found
love with two long term partners late in life. He met Bill King whilst living
in Cornwall. King died in 1993 from a heart attack. Terry Arbuckle shared his
studio home at Hove in Brighton. He expressed his sexuality in a series of
simplified linear paintings which show an anonymous and austere outline absent
from other paintings.
“I am in the dictionary of
Modern Painters and that’s the only qualification I have. A lot of money is not
the most important thing. The most important thing is the next painting - a
painting which might be wonderful and make me realise that the last one was
not.” Yankel recently concluded however: “I am painting the best paintings of
my life right now.” And advised: “The only real thing is you. The rest is
illusion.”
Sources
Liverpool Central Library
Wikipedia
GX Gallerey (images)
Pink News
By Robert F Edwards
