Treasury of Athens, Ikon and Paeonies (1981) by Peter Yates by Mid-Century Modern Alternatives

Born in Leytonstone, east London in 1920, Peter was to become a highly respected architect and artist, based in adult life in the North East of England. Peter’s work was widely exhibited, including at the Royal Academy of Arts, London, the Hatton Gallery, Newcastle and Colbert Gallery, London. Peter sadly died in 1982. 

Treasury of Athens, Ikon and Paeonies is one of a series of ten paintings of the same size and media. All paintings in this series have Mediterranean themes, mainly of Greece and Delphi, those being visited locations during a trip in the summer of 1979. All works in the series were initially designed to be exhibited unframed, either as individual images, or hung edge to edge as a horizontal panorama and this painting was displayed in this way in the Peter Yates Retrospective ‘Cyclops Rock’ exhibition at the Hatton Gallery, Newcastle University, 1982, from which it was sold, and subsequently framed soon thereafter.

We are most grateful to Sally Ann Yates for her kind assisting in cataloguing her father’s painting