Lot 16 , Laetitia Yhap, (b.1941), Conversation, 1981, Liquitex on printed Vilene, 58 x 76 cm

Laetitia Yhap
(b.1941)
Conversation, 1981
Liquitex on printed Vilene
58 x 76 cm
£1,500-2,000
Hastings Museum and Art Gallery is celebrating Laetitia Yhap’s 80 years of ‘Vital Life’ and work this year with an exhibition of her paintings and drawings chronicling the working lives of the town’s fisherman.*

Born in London during the Blitz to an Austrian mother and Chinese father, Yhap studied at Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts and in 1962 travelled to Italy for a year on a Leverhulme Scholarship studying Renaissance art and architecture. On her return, she was a postgraduate student at the Slade School of Fine Art in London before moving to Hastings.

She recalls: “I had arrived in Hastings in 1967 and was making large scale watercolour and tempera paintings which excluded the human presence. For me the only way to understand the extraordinary world and work of the fishermen, was to do it the slow way by drawing from direct observation out of doors. I did not possess a camera and it would not have occurred to me to use one. The first 18 months of research was spent entirely and exclusively drawing. Later, as I became familiar with the scene, I made paintings and more complete drawings could be developed. It was always important to me that the people I depicted were recognisable.”

Yhap is represented in public collections including the Arts Council of Great Britain, the British Council, the Contemporary Art Society, the Government Art Collection, Hastings Museum and Art Gallery, Hove Museum and Art Gallery, New Hall Cambridge, the Nuffield Foundation, Rugby Museum, South East Arts Collection, Tate, Unilever, University College London and the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool.


* My Vital Life: Laetitia Yhap at 80 at the Hastings Museum & Art Gallery. The Covid-19 pandemic necessitated a digital version of the exhibition and the artist’s gallery tour can be viewed on the website. However, now selected watercolour paintings and drawings will be on view in Museum’s Walkway Gallery until 2 January 2022.