In His Own Little World: Fred Yates

‘In His Own Little World’ was an imaginary exhibition title created by Fred Yates for a painting sent to the gallery shortly before his death last July (p.63). It depicts an eager Yates crowd straight off a 1950’s Manchester tram arriving at 38 Albemarle Street: first in line is a woman Fred would have described as ‘fashionably dressed’, swinging a blue handbag, beside her a mother pushing a pram whilst one old man in a flat cap points with his stick at one of Fred’s train paintings in the window. Greeted by a curious face peering out from behind a net curtain and an unlikely instruction to ‘Wipe Your Feet’, the guests invited to Fred’s fantasy show were some of those stock characters that had peopled so many of his paintings over the last 35 years, from Marazion and Blackpool, to Cap Ferrat and Nice.