Yasmin David: The Nature of Light

Yasmin lived and worked in South Devon for over fifty years. Her work explores the particular light and landscape near her home on the edge of Dartmoor. One of the few women working in landscape during the post-war period, David produced paintings which are both intimate and dramatic, emotional and turbulent, capturing the molten qualities of sky and land. They directly reference the unique relationship between the painter and the land.

Although Yasmin exhibited briefly at the Mall Galleries early in her career, after marrying, moving to Devon and raising a family, she chose not to exhibit publicly. Yet over more than fifty years, Yasmin created a deeply personal, luminous body of work, largely unseen during her lifetime.

The works remained hidden for decades. After her death, her daughter, filmmaker Clio David, discovered hundreds of previously unknown paintings, drawings, notebooks and poetry — material which has since been brought to light through exhibitions, archiving and scholarly work.

Yasmin David (1939-2009) was the daughter of Lorna Wishart (neé Garman) the youngest of the beautiful and unconventional Garman sisters, and muse to both Laurie Lee and Lucian Freud. Yasmin was born during Lorna’s affair with Lee. She was named Yasmin as the Y can be seen as two conjoined L’s. She only found out the identity of her biological father at the age of 19.