The Thelma Hulbert Gallery in Devon is a wonderful rural art centre. It is almost five years since I have been there and my recent trip was as enjoyable as my first. I wrote about the gallery back then so only need to add the link to that post of 2022. The latest exhibition is for the landscapist, Yasmin David (1939-2009) who lived in Devon for many years.
Yasmin David was always going to be an artist and her childhood was surrounded with culture. Her parents were the writer and poet, Laurie Lee and the very Bohemian, Lorna Garman Wishart. It was said of her, “Lorna, the baby of the family, was perhaps the most flamboyant of the fabulous Garmans. She wore beautiful and unusual clothes, and smelled of Chanel No. 5 went riding on her horse at night, drove a chocolate-brown Bentley and would strip naked to swim in inviting lakes or rivers or 10-metre waves.” As well as with Laurie Lee she had numerous other affairs including Lucian Freud. Yasmin could also count, among her close relatives, the sculptor, Jacob Epstein, and his daughter the painter, Kitty Garman.
Yasmin David exhibited at the Mall Galleries early in her career but after moving to Devon, she chose not to show her work publicly. After her death, Yasmin’s daughter, filmmaker Clio David, discovered hundreds of previously unknown paintings, drawings, notebooks and poetry from which this exhibition, Into the Light, is drawn.
Dartmoor and the surrounding area has influenced her work with its turbulent colours and form. This exhibition uses light to magnify the emotional and dramatic landscape of Devon where the sky and land seemed to be drawn together as if in a crucible. I was particularly taken by the vivid greens and yellows evoking images of Graham Sutherland for me.
