Yankel Feather

Yankel Feather (21 June 1920 – 18 April 2009) was a British painter, and 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, and in later works Feather's style became more expressive and changed as he began painting from memory. His subject matter included still lifes, populated scenes of Liverpool dance halls, and seascapes of his St Ives period.

Early life Feather was born in Toxteth Liverpool in 1920 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 took up painting after visits to the Walker Art Gallery. 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.

Art 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.

Inspired by the atmosphere in his Basement Club in Liverpool (set up by Feather in 1958) he painted every aspect of dance: from the Twist during World War II to Rock 'n' Roll, to decades of ballet shows. Feather's paintings also explore Cornish landscapes and seascapes, market scenes from Morocco and views of a crowded Brighton beach.

Throughout his life, flowers were a recurrent subject matter, acting as a bridge between the vibrant dancehalls and the bleak British coastline.

Yankel Feather 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. Feather painted almost always from memory.

"From Velasquez I learnt how to see, from Hilton I learned how to feel and from Fuseli I learned how to fly"– Yankel Feather