"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."
Born in Lancashire (1922) Fred Yates’s early career as an insurance clerk was stunted by the arrival of WWII, during which he served in the Grenadier Guards. Following the death of his brother and the end of the war Yates turned to art, enrolling in at Bournemouth Teacher Training College to receive a formal education in drawing, printmaking, and painting. Over the next 20 years Yates taught in Devon and the South coast, drawn by the financial security despite his dislike of the role; his insular disposition making discipline in the classroom near to impossible.
In 1968 he finally made the decision to become a full-time painter and move to Cornwall. His early work was predominently painted outdoors on rough boards using household paints. The use of heavy impasto and rough brushwork imbues the everyday with a tangible vicacity. Such painterly charm drew in notable collectors, leading to his first solo show at the Reynolds Gallery, Plymouth, in 1976. During the 1970s and 80's Yates began to gain wider acceptance and in 1992 had his first London exhibition with Thompson's Gallery.
Solitary by nature, Yates moved to a mill house in France in the Cote d’Azur in the early 1990s. After a series of moves he eventually settled in the remote mountain village of La Motte. During this period that Yates began to produce some of his most daring paintings, often working with huge quantities of paint applied by stick or hands. Yates's enchantment with the nature and the everyday abounds during this period.
In his last years he made repeated efforts to return to England, eventually finding a small house in Frome, Somerset. On his journey to complete the purchase Yates suffered a heart attack, dying in University College Hospital (2008).
