Keith Vaughan: Romanticism to Abstraction
Teaching Notes
Biography
Keith Vaughan was born in Selsey in 1912 and
grew up in Hampstead, North London with his
mother and younger brother Dick. Despite having
a rather sheltered existence, Vaughan had a
fulfilling and cultured childhood. He listened to
classical music and learnt to the play the violin
and piano. In 1921 he was sent away to board at
Christ’s Hospital school in Horsham.
By the time he left school Vaughan had received
limited artistic training. His first job was at an
advertising agency, where he continued to work
until the outbreak of the Second World War. In
1939 Vaughan’s brother Dick was killed when
the RAF plane he was flying was shot down by
enemy fire. Vaughan was devastated by this
tragedy. He took the brave decision to register
as a conscientious objector, a position that
often had great stigma attached to it. Initially
he volunteered with the St John’s Ambulance
Brigade and later became a German interpreter in
a Prisoner of War Camp.
Keith Vaughan: At home, Belsize Park, 1963, Digital Photographic Print, 50 x 60 cm, presented by the artist (2007)
Up to the mid 1940s he had created only a
handful of oils, working mainly with gouaches.
In 1946 he turned to oil paints in search of
a more robust style. Their slow-drying and
dense properties lent themselves to a broader
treatment. Works became larger and Vaughan’s
style progressively simplified, although careful
drawing continued to play a central role in this
process. Even the most spontaneous-looking
compositions were first worked out in his
sketchbook before being squared up on the
canvas and the colours ‘filled in’.
After the war Vaughan took up various teaching
posts at the Camberwell College of Arts, the
Central School of Art and finally the Slade. During
this time his reputation as an artist grew. In 1962
the Whitechapel staged a major retrospective of
his work.
A gay man, Vaughan lived through an era that
was intolerant towards homosexuality. Much of
what is known about his personal relationships
comes from private journals. The diaries also
reveal episodes of extreme self-doubt and
loneliness. In later life he became increasingly
reclusive, sadly committing suicide in 1977.
The Exhibition
The exhibition is split into three parts and charts
Vaughan’s engagement with the English Romantic
tradition through to a looser handling of paint
inspired by European Modernism. Though his
works became increasingly abstract his starting
point always came from natural forms he found in
life: the figure and landscape are therefore central
themes that reoccur throughout the show.
Working Method
Vaughan always kept to two-dimensional
painting, although he continually strove to push
the boundaries of his chosen medium.
Words in this pack which are underlined refer
to the References and Connections section
on pages 29 and 30.
1
1: Neo-Romanticism and War
N
eo-Romanticism was a movement in British
art dating from between the late 1930s
to mid 1950s, which consciously looked back
to the visionary landscape art of nineteenthcentury Romantic artists William Blake, Alexander
Cozens, and Samuel Palmer. Particularly during
the Second World War, the legacy of English
Romanticism was widely discussed. Artists such
as John Piper and Graham Sutherland turned
to a traditional means of representation in the
wake of the unprecedented damage and loss of
life. Like the first Romantics, they drew upon a
wide range of literary sources, whilst nature was
considered to be an elemental force capable of
inspiring sublime emotional reaction.
Night in the Streets of the City, 1943, Indian ink and crayon on
paper, Private Collection, West Sussex
Vaughan met Graham Sutherland during the
early 1940s. He often visited the artist’s home
when he was stationed in Yorkshire with the
non-combatants corps. As a result of their
close relationship Vaughan’s early work features
many of the attributes now associated with
Neo-Romanticism. In his wartime work moons,
flames, rocks and frail figures inhabit melancholic
landscapes painted in muted colours. These
atmospheric pastoral scenes were tainted
with nostalgia but they also offered poignant
reflections upon the devastation wrought by the
conflict.
book he could fit in his bag and an unbreakable
bottle of ink. He made numerous observational
drawings to which he then applied layers of
watercolour, gouache and wax-resist in order to
add texture, light and shadow.
As a conscientious objector Vaughan didn’t
experience military action directly, but the war
seems to have had a lasting impact upon him.
Perhaps because he was not an official war
artist like Henry Moore and Graham Sutherland,
he didn’t focus upon particular events. Instead
many of his works feature unidentified people
sheltering in caves, usually cowering or crouched
in the foetal position. The vulnerability of these
figures seems to be a wider metaphor for
humanity during the war.
Often experiencing episodes of extreme isolation
and loneliness, Vaughan was perhaps attracted to
Neo-Romanticism because he identified with the
Romantic notion of the “cult of the individual”.
He believed the essence of Romantic art was
rooted in struggle, and at this time disagreed
with what he called the ‘hard-edged perfection’
common in classical art. Just like the nineteenthcentury Romantics, Vaughan’s style took on a
sketch-like quality consisting of broken-edged
lines. It is notable that in his finished gouache
and ink drawings initial pencil marks are often
deliberately left in.
A more personal picture is the amorous Night
in the Streets of the City. This depicts kissing
profiles engraved on a boulder and set against a
backdrop of ruined buildings. The image is one of
fantasy and perhaps reflects Vaughan’s yearning
for love.
In any case, the constraints of army life meant
that Vaughan did not have the space to make
polished paintings using oils. When he first
mobilised with the non-combatants corps he
was reported to have taken the biggest sketch2
1: Neo-Romanticism and War
Two Figures by the Shore c. 1942
Pen, ink and wash on paper, 19 x 13.5 cm
Private collection, London
Two Figures by the Shore best represents the melancholic tendencies of Neo-Romanticism at the height
of the war. Vaughan has ignored the rolling green landscape and vast skies of North Yorkshire in favour
of a mysterious shoreline. This environment is more like a dreamscape, which could perhaps even be
described as nightmarish. The sky is darkened, undergrowth runs wild and the landscape is marked
by huge shells. Wraith-like figures stare up at a perfectly round moon, which radiates with a spiritual
energy. Vaughan’s suggestion that human beings are tied to the landscape, organically and perhaps even
psychologically, would become an important theme in his work.
Key elements
• Washes of blue-black ink create a sense of
foreboding.
• Fossil imprints on the rocks link the scene
with an ancient or primitive era.
• Organic forms echo the shape of the bodies.
Shells mirror the rounded curves of the
figure in profile, whilst the slanting lines used
to indicate his ribcage are repeated in the
diagonal leaf pattern.
• Pathetic Fallacy. A device used by many
Romantic artists and poets in which the
landscape is treated as if it had human feelings
and sensations.
3
4
2: Literary References
Ulysses II, c.1938, Oil on paper, Collection of John Allen Collection F.R.S.A
P
return home to Ithaca with his crew after the
Trojan War, suffering shipwrecks and adventures.
In 1938, a year before the outbreak of the
Second World War, Vaughan created a series
of paintings based upon the myth, all of which
featured male figures on an imaginary shoreline.
Inspiration for the Ulysses paintings came from
his seaside holidays in the 1930s, when he stayed
in former railway carriages at Pagham on the
West Sussex coast with groups of friends and
his younger brother Dick. The innocence of this
time manifested itself in both his paintings of his
friends relaxing on the beach and his musings upon
Ulysses’ gallant heroism. The heavy black sky in
Ulysses II, which became a recurring feature of
his wartime paintings, is the only indication of the
horror that was to be unleashed in 1939.
oetry, novels and plays were the starting
point for many of Vaughan’s paintings. He
sought to educate himself through reading as
widely as possible and thought a painter could
only be successful if he had a well-stocked mind.
He was drawn to classical mythology, particularly
stories concerning acts of heroism. He also liked
writers who shared his interest in humanity and
the modern condition, such as TE Lawrence,
Franz Kafka and James Joyce. Vaughan felt a
particular connection with the poetry of Arthur
Rimbaud and was fascinated by the fact that the
poet endured a tortured homosexual relationship.
He illustrated numerous literary anthologies
including Rimbaud’s Une Saison en Enfer 1873
(A Season in Hell).
Ulysses II, c. 1938
Ulysses was the hero in Homer’s epic poem, The
Odyssey. Ulysses travails as he valiantly tries to
5
2: Literary References
Laocoön Figure, 1964
oil on board, 101.6 x 91.4 cm
The Hargraves and Ball Charitable Trust
Laocoön and his Sons, c. 25 BC
White Marble
Vatican Museums, Vatican City
Laocoön is a figure from Greek mythology, best known for his gruesome death. He was killed by
serpents sent by the god Poseidon when he warned against accepting the Trojan horse as a gift. During
the Renaissance an ancient Hellenistic sculpture depicting Laocoön’s final struggle was uncovered. The
sculpture presented a difficult paradox: it represented a perfect model of ideal beauty whilst also being
a scene of exquisite pain and death. Vaughan’s portrayal of the story is similarly melodramatic. Laocoön’s
stretched body twists and his gestures are wild and tormented. The vigorous handling of paint reflects
what Vaughan described as ‘man’s conflict with his environment and with himself and his own body”.
Key elements
• Serpentine brushstrokes and frenzied
• Translucent white skin is reminiscent of the
application of paint agitates the whole surface.
marble used to create the ancient sculpture.
• Faint contours replace heavy outlines to
indicate the shape of the body.
6
7
2: Literary References
The Trial, 1949-59, partially re-painted in 1959
Oil on cardboard, 71 x 99.6 cm
Worthing Museum and Art Gallery
The Trial is based on the 1925 short story ‘The Trial’ by the Czech Modernist writer Franz Kafka in
which a man is arrested by a remote and inaccessible authority and accused of a crime that he did not
commit. The crime is revealed to neither him, nor the reader. The dark and nightmarish atmosphere of
this painting could be seen to convey the uncertainties of the Cold War period immediately after the
Second World War.
Key elements
• The setting is stark and ambiguous. A
• The interrogator is faceless, just like the
burning candle is the only source of light in an
otherwise darkened room and the flat grey
walls are oppressive.
nameless legal government which accuses
Joseph K.
• Film adaptations of The Trial include a
• The hood and bondage suggest torture
version made by Orson Welles in 1962 and
After Hours made by Martin Scorsese in
1985. Tom Basden’s play Joseph K (2010)
is a recent re-imaging of the story which
takes place in modern day London with the
protagonist cast as a city banker.
recalling the barbarity of the flogging scenes in
Kafka’s story and the merciless ending in which
the main protagonist, Josepk K, is executed.
8
9
3: Influences
D
uring his early career Vaughan’s style was a
fusion of his fellow Neo-Romantic artists.
Graham Sutherland first introduced Vaughan to
the technique of mixing ink, gouache and wax
resist; a method that was employed at varying
times by the likes of John Minton, Robert
Colquhoun and Robert MacBryde to create
atmospheric landscapes.
In 1948 Vaughan wrote in his journal: ‘Return of
interest to the French – Cezanne, Picasso and
away from Blake, Palmer, Sutherland movement’.
He was known to have kept reproductions of
Cezanne’s Les Grandes Baigneuses, Matisse’s
Piano Lesson and his The Moroccans over his
mantelpiece. As Vaughan moved away from an
illustrative style he was interested in the way
European artists rejected illusionary perspective,
instead emphasising the two-dimensionality and
painterly qualities of their pictures.
Prior to the war Vaughan painted figures that
were inspired by Picasso’s Neo-classical nudes
of the 1920s, of which Seated Boy is a good
example. In 1946 Vaughan visited a major Pablo
Picasso and Henri Matisse exhibition organised by
the V&A Museum. The prevailing sense of order,
logic and strength in Picasso’s paintings was even
more appealing to Vaughan in the peace-time
era. Later he reflected that Picasso was ‘the
father of us all’.
Vaughan’s palette was typically muted but
following a trip to Morocco in the late 1940s he
sometimes incorporated brighter colours. The
exotic light he observed in Morocco found its
way into the vibrant Musicians at Marrakesh, a
painting which borrows heavily from Matisse’s
North African scenes.
In response to Picasso Vaughan’s figures
became generalised and more robust, and were
constructed by interlocking rhomboids, triangles
and rectangles. One such painting is The Return
of the Prodigal Son, a work that is indebted
to Cubism. Though consisting of a group of
male nude figures their mask-like faces and
rectangular gestures are most comparable to
Picasso’s Woman with Fan.
Nicolas de Staël, Figure by the Sea, 1952
oil on canvas
Vaughan always resisted the tendency to resort
to total abstraction. Towards the end of his
career he was influenced by the painting of the
Russian – French artist Nicholas de Staël. De
Staël’s non-figurative paintings, which comprised
of tessellated blocks of colour, offered an
alternative to the hard-edged painting being
pioneered by American Abstract Expressionists
during this time.
Pablo Picasso, Woman with Fan, 1908
oil on canvas, 152 x 101 cm,
The State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg
10
3: Influences
Keith Vaughan, Man in a Cave, 1943
Gouache and ink on paper, 35.5 x 53.3 cm
Private Collection courtesy Osbourne
Samuel Gallery, London
Henry Moore, Two Sleepers, 1941
Crayon, chalk & wash on paper, 31 x 46.5 cm
Hussey Bequest, Chichester District Council
Man in a Cave, a drawing of a male nude cowering in a rocky cave relates to the gallery’s Two Sleepers
by Henry Moore. Both works explore human experience during the war years. Henry Moore made
observational sketches of figures sheltering in the London Underground during the Blitz, whilst
Vaughan’s picture is most probably an imagined scenario. For Vaughan the landscape seems to offer
some level of protection to his vulnerable figure, whereas the pairing in Moore’s drawing is about human
solidarity in the face of suffering.
Key Elements
• Sombre washes of ochre and blue ink create
• The bowed head and hunched posture
increases the alienation of Vaughan’s figure.
Moore represents a pair of sleepers. Given
their intimacy we might assume they are a
couple.
an overall feeling of heaviness and emotional
weight in both pictures.
• Strong outlines are used to describe the
figures. Moore has applied a further layer of
wax resist whilst Vaughan adds touches of
colour using gouache. Both techniques create
definition and lift the compositions.
• Foreground space creates a sense of
distance in Man in a Cave. In contrast the
oblique angle and cropping of the bodies in
Two Sleepers increases our proximity to the
scene.
11
12
3: Influences
Keith Vaughan, Musicians at Marrakesh,
1966-70
oil on canvas, 126.5 x 101 cm
Henry Matisse, The Moroccans, 1915
oil on canvas, 181.3 x 279.4 cm
Museum of Modern Art, New York
Accepted by HM Government in lieu of Inheritance Tax and allocated to
Pallant House Gallery from the Estate of Professor John Ball (2011)
These paintings reflect two similar impressions of North Africa. Vaughan visited Marrakesh in 1965
and began work on Musicians at Marrakesh the following year once he had returned to England. The
repetition of shapes and colours indicates that he was also looking at The Moroccans by Matisse at this
time. In his own painting Vaughan identified with the seated foreground figure, looking in from outside.
Key elements
• The paintings consist of abstract expanses of
flattened colour.
• Their relatively subdued palette is lifted
with keynotes of green, yellow and blue, thus
evoking the severe light of the tropical sun.
• Black is used in the background to create a
shallow picture space. This also distinguishes
and separates sections of the compositions.
• Both involve groups of figures engaged in
a shared action. Matisse shows figures in
profile as if kneeling down to pray. We know
from the title that Vaughan’s painting features
musicians. One of the figures seems to be
striking a yellow drum with a stick.
• The figure with the drum echoes the pose of
the seated man in Matisse’s painting.
• Buildings are indicated on the horizon of
Vaughan’s painting, whilst the domed roof
is a prominent feature of The Moroccans. It
perhaps represents a mosque suggesting a
theme of religious devotion.
13
14
3: Influences
Keith Vaughan, Group of Bathers, 1951
Oil on canvas
Dr Mark Cecil Collection
Paul Cezanne, Les Grande Baigneurs
(The Large Bathers), 1898,
Lithograph on paper, 44.8 x 50.7 cm
Kearley Bequest, through The Art Fund (1989)
In their depiction of bathers, Vaughan and Paul Cézanne were reinterpreting a long tradition of paintings
with nude figures in the landscape by artists such as Titian and Poussin. Like Cezanne Vaughan applied
touches of the same colour across both the background and foreground spaces of his compositions. The
effect was to flatten the landscape, as well as creating continuity between his figures and the natural
environment they inhabited. Cezanne painted both male and female bathers. A lithograph by Cezanne
featuring three male bathers is held in the Pallant House Gallery Collection.
• Arcadia This refers to an ancient Greek
province which, during the renaissance
became associated with an idyllic vision of
unspoiled wilderness. This is inferred in the
harmonious structure of Vaughan’s painting
and is also made more explicit by Cezanne
in his representation of pine trees and the
ancient peak of Mount Saint Victoire in France
Key elements
• Tableaux Both Cezanne and Vaughan make a
• Modulation of colour The figures are
modelled with a combination of yellow-brown
and blue pigment, which are also used for the
earth and sky. Whilst cool tones recede into
the background, warm ochres create areas of
relief and are used to highlight muscles and
flesh on the bodies.
point of capturing the figures from different
angles and in distinct, stoic positions, which
has the effect of a freeze frame. The pose of
the man in profile is almost identical in both
Vaughan’s painting and the lithograph by
Cezanne.
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16
4: The Male Figure
V
aughan is best known for his paintings of
the male figure and a noticeable aspect of
his work is that he rarely painted women. His
paintings of the male figure often tell stories
of collective endeavour, personal sacrifice and
alienation from the crowd, all of which resonate
with modern experience. There are two main
strands in Vaughan’s work - the first involving
figures undertaking a specific physical activity
and the second featuring generalised, selfpossessed male nudes.
Figures in Action
The focus of these paintings is the action made
by people as they go about everyday tasks. They
broadly contain groups, clothed and gathered for
a particular purpose.
Initially Vaughan chose to represent men who
were engaged in traditional occupations, usually
manual labouring. The figures in Two Labourers
Lighting a Cigarette are typical workmen who
wear cloth caps, shirts and baggy overalls. In
the late 1940s and early 1950s these were
followed by prints and drawings which took as
their subject a single action. These included
woodcutting, fishing and fruit-picking as in Boys
Gathering Pears.
Keith Vaughan, Boys Gathering Pears, c. 1948
Crayon, gouache and ink on paper, 37.5 x 34 cm
Private Collection
At the beginning of the 1950s Vaughan began
to simplify his style and most of the figures lost
their clothing altogether. He now preferred to
depict anonymous male nudes, but occasionally
reverted to painting groups of figures involved
in a shared activity. Woodsmen in a Clearing
focuses on the action of cutting wood. The
shapes created by the mens’ poses are mirrored
throughout the landscape in curving and diagonal
lines, creating unity between their bodies and the
natural surroundings.
One of the last examples in this strand of painting
is Musicians at Marrrakesh. Unlike the earlier
gouaches the figures are relatively static and
their action suppressed. Nonetheless they are
distinguishable from his depictions of the male
nude because the title roots them to a particular
scenario and location.
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4: The Male Figure
The Male Nude
Vaughan’s treatment of the male nude was
distinctive. The bodies are muscular and defined
with heavy outlines, whilst the heads are bulletlike and disproportionately small. At times
there seems to be a strong element of personal
enjoyment in his paintings whilst others are
riddled with anxiety. This was perhaps a reflection
of his ever-changing feelings towards his own
sexuality and continuing episodes of self-doubt.
Though Vaughan’s approach was certainly
individual, his male nudes nevertheless engage
with a longstanding theme in Western art. In
ancient Rome and Greece sculptors made heroic
statues of their Gods which they based upon
the physiques of athletes and gladiators. During
the Renaissance this classical model became the
blueprint for an ideal body type and the male
nude was upheld as the epitome of beauty,
strength and virtue.
Vaughan never received formal training but his
paintings of the male body seem to aspire to the
same essential principles. On his frequent visits
to Paris he would almost certainly have seen the
Neo-Classical History paintings at the Louvre. He
also travelled to Greece during the early 1960s
and recorded seeing ancient statues. Their impact
can be seen in paintings such as Standing Figure,
Kouros. The term Kouros means (male) youth and
is used to describe Ancient Greek statues with
arms at their side. Here Vaughan has copied this
classical pose whilst the ochre skin-tones and
deep blue surroundings evoke the colours of the
Mediterranean.
Keith Vaughan, Standing Figure, Kouros, 1960
Oil on canvas, 91.4 x 71.1 cm
Private Collection
Exposed and vulnerable in an inhospitable
landscape, the Assemblies are as much to do with
modern anxiety as the classical ideal. Vaughan
himself said, “These compositions rely on the
assumption that the human figure, the nude, is
still a valid symbol for the expression of man’s
aspirations and reactions to the life of his time”.
From 1952 Vaughan began to gather nude
figures together in barren landscapes and call
them Assemblies. There were nine altogether,
the last done in 1976. Across the series Vaughan
experimented with the effects of different
figurative arrangements. In some paintings
the bodies overlap, others barely touch and
frequently they are completely separate. Unlike
his paintings of figures in action there is no
obvious purpose for the gathering, whilst in many
of his works there is a sense of crisis caused by
psychological and physical isolation.
18
4: The Male Figure
First Assembly of Figures, 1952
Oil on board, 142 x 116.8 cm
Accepted by HM Government in lieu of Inheritance Tax and allocated to the Sainsbury
Centre for Visual Arts, from the Estate of Professor John Ball (2011)
First Assembly of Figures is the first of Vaughan’s Assembly series. The painting exemplifies his
distinctive treatment of the male nude that featured a small head and strong, muscular body. The fact
that all the figures are unclothed means that they become symbolic rather than anecdotal or relating
to a real event or context. Amongst the group there is a prevailing sense of isolation. It is noticeable
that the figures look identical. It could be that we are seeing the same person from four different
angles, which has the same effect as a sculpture in the round. Vaughan progressively simplified and
abstracted his figures until the last assembly paintings when they were little more than patches of
colour. In this early composition the shape of the body is retained with tonal modulation, whilst the
palette is emotionally cool. This focus on strong draughtsmanship as opposed to coloration was
also a characteristic of many artist’s depictions of the male nude during the Renaissance, including
Michelangelo Buonarroti.
Key elements
• Unrealistic colour used for the figure’s flesh.
Details such as navels, ears and collar bones
picked out with heavy lines.
• Little distinction is made between the floor
and the background.
• Ominous shadows hang over the group and a
mysterious shape is cast in the bottom of the
composition, both of which add to the sense
of ambiguity.
• Tension is created at points where the figures
overlap.
• Anxious gestures are an expression of inner
trauma. One figure folds his arm defensively
whilst the image of a man clasping a hand
to his head is repeated in many of Vaughan’s
figurative paintings.
• Heavy limbs and thick torsos bear relation
to Picasso’s Neo-classical paintings executed
immediately after the First World War.
• The circular arrangement of turning figures
is similar to those in the sculpture Berghers of
Calais by Auguste Rodin.
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20
4: The Male Figure
The Martrydom of St Sebastian, 1958
Oil on hardboard, 91.5 x 124.5 cm
Bradford Museums and Galleries
Though he was not religious Vaughan occasionally took up religious subjects and was particularly drawn
to themes of personal sacrifice and sufferance. Saint Sebastian was a Christian matyr sentenced to
death during Emperor Diocletian’s persecution of Christians. The story was first recorded in the ‘Golden
Legend’ written by Jacopo de Voragine in the thirteenth century. This was translated numerous times
and has been an important and accessible source for artists ever since. St Sebastian is usually depicted
naked with arrows penetrating his skin. Traditionally his outstretched body has provided artists with an
opportunity to show off their ability to paint the male nude in a variety of poses. His is often depicted
as a handsome young man pierced with arrows.
Key elements
• Overlapping forms result in a compressed
• Bodies are cropped along the bottom edge.
• The figures have three basic poses, seen in
• The Renaissance artist Andrea Mantegna
picture space. This is accentuated by the flat
background, which also resembles a theatre
backdrop and heightens the dramatic intensity.
This technique was also used by artists such
as Degas to throw their paintings off balance
and create movement.
profile, face-on and from the rear. Vaughan
demonstrates that he is able to paint the nude
from every angle.
famously painted three versions of the saint,
one an altarpiece panel now housed at the
Louvre and which Vaughan may have seen on
one of his many visits to Paris.
• Exaggerated colours emphasise the
difference between St Sebastian and the
archer in the front of the composition. Their
bodies seem to jump out of the picture frame
and into the viewer’s space.
• In 1976, the British director Derek Jarman
made a film, Sebastiane, which caused
controversy in its treatment of the martyr as a
homosexual icon.
• The archers are expressionless and unfeeling.
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22
5: The Landscape
T
hroughout his career Vaughan used the
landscape as a vehicle for experimentation.
His pictures developed from descriptive
depictions of a particular place to painterly
explorations of form, structure and tone using
the landscape as a starting point. Despite using
simplified blocks of colour his paintings were
always based on reality and never completely
abstract.
England. Vaughan wrote to the artist Prunella
Clough that they were ‘waterproof, impervious to
everything, can be rolled, stamped and eaten’.
His palette adapted with the new countryside he
was seeing. Whereas the landscapes of England
and Ireland where lush and green, he now
observed a full spectrum of lavenders, pinks and
yellows. Vaughan also noticed that the seasons
where more defined. The intense colours in
Landscape with Steeple, Iowa recall the basking
heat of a summer’s day.
A major concern for Vaughan was how to marry
the human figure and the natural environment so
that they were equal components of the picture.
For this he studied Cezanne but also the painting
Tempesta by the Renaissance artist Giorgione.
Rather than choosing spectacular vistas, Vaughan
preferred modest and compact landscapes. He
often liked depicting the sea but these works
were always painted facing landward towards
the coastline. They featured craggy rocks, fishing
huts and the occasional fishermen trawling their
nets.
From the 1940s travelling to new places
informed his perception of the landscape.
Vaughan didn’t venture to the North of England
until he was stationed there during the Second
World War. He journeyed up through Derby,
Sheffield and Bradford before reaching his posting
in a Prisoner of War camp in Malton, near York.
Vaughan was struck by the tiny stone boxes
of houses. They are a feature of many of his
landscapes from the war years and can be seen
in Road out of a Village executed a year after the
war’s end in 1946. The painting is tinged with
an evening light which illuminates the green hills
with an eerie glow.
Keith Vaughan, Landscape with Steeple, Iowa, 1960
Gouache and oil pastel on paper, 165 x 128 cm
Pallant House Gallery (George and Ann Dannatt Gift, 2011)
After the war Vaughan went on cycling trips
through Brittany and Ireland. He also visited
Zennor in Cornwall and bought back notebooks
that consisted of new ideas for his painting style.
Like his figure paintings Vaughan’s landscapes
expanded and became structured around an
underlying geometry.
Before he left the USA he travelled to Mexico
and in September 1960 sailed to Athens. From
here he visited the Greek Islands of Mykonos,
Aegina, Dlos and Mycenae. The glistening blues
and greens of the Mediterranean Sea expanded
Vaughan’s understanding of colour even further.
After this his paintings were a range of auburns,
maroons, cadmiums, blues and browns – with
which he represented the three elements of air,
earth and water.
In 1950 Vaughan spent a term as Resident
Painter at Iowa State University in the USA.
He began using oil pastels which were rare in
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5: The Landscape
The Village, 1953
Oil on canvas, 81.5 x 112 cm
Arts Council Collection, Southbank Centre, London
In the 1950s Vaughan increasingly used the landscape as a vehicle for experimenting with form. The
Village was painted following a cycling trip through Cork and Kerry. The structural approach to the
architecture was informed by the townscapes in the south of France by Cezanne and the Cubists Pablo
Picasso and Georges Braque. The muted tones reflect not only his use of colour at this time, but also
the greenness of the Irish landscape. The artist Patrick Heron observed how Vaughan ‘was an incipient
Cubist from the start. And so we were not taken completely by surprise when great flat sheaths of
emerald green began to emerge out of the masses of his trees and to float, more or less free of one
another, in space’
Key elements
• Geometric structure: The village scene
• The viewer is encouraged to see the
• Foreground buildings are compressed against
• Even the sky is pervaded by a green tinge,
is fragmented into a series of interlocking
triangles, squares and rectangles.
buildings as flat abstract shapes rather than
3-dimensional forms.
a flattened expanse of lush green hills in the
background.
which was characteristic of his paintings of
British landscapes during the early 1950s.
24
25
5: The Landscape
Cenarth Farm, 1962-63
Oil on canvas, 91 x 101 cm
Private collection courtesy Osbourne Samuel Gallery, London
Vaughan’s later works reveal an interest in the plastic properties of oil paint. The driving force in his
painting was no longer drawing, but brushwork. Cenarth Farm is one of the most abstract of his
landscapes. Individual elements such as trees, houses and the sky are barely distinguishable but instead
merge with the muted background. The earthy palette reflects Vaughan’s attraction to natural materials
such as limestone, sandstone and chalk which he connected with prehistory or antiquity. Cenarth is an
ancient parish community in Carmarthenshire in Wales. In this respect the work is based upon a place
that is tangible and real. Vaughan never saw himself as a completely abstract painter, commenting, ‘for
me painting which has not got a representational element in it hardly goes beyond the point of design.’
Key elements
• Recognisable landscape forms have
• Colour and textured brushwork structure
• Vaughan’s gestural and lyrical abstraction
• The palette is generally softer with highlights
disappeared altogether.
the composition.
was almost certainly informed by Art
Informel. This was a movement of European
abstract art that Nicolas de Staël was also
loosely associated with before his death in
1953.
of burnt orange and verdant greens.
• The painting resembles an aerial photograph
of a countryside landscape.
26
27
Some Important Dates in Keith Vaughan’s Life
1912 Born John Keith Vaughan.
1918
His father left the family.
1921-30 A boarder at Christ’s Hospital, Horsham.
1931-8 Worked at Lintas, advertising arm of Lever
Brothers.
1939 Outbreak of Second World War and death of
brother Dick.
1941-6 A non-combatant in the army.
1946 Saw the Picasso/Matisse exhibition at the Victoria
and Albert Museum.
1948 – 52 Worked as a teacher at Central School of Art and
living with the artist John Minton.
1952 Visited an exhibition of paintings by Nicolas de
Staël at the Matthiesen Gallery, London.
1959 Spent a term as Resident Painter at Iowa State
University in the USA.
1962 Retrospective at the Whitechapel Art Gallery,
London.
1965 Traveled to North Africa and awarded the CBE.
1977
Died, 4 November, in his studio, to the very end
writing the journal he had first started in 1939.
28
References and Connections
1: Neo – Romanticism and War
who objected to conscription on religious or moral
convictions, became army privates, wore army
uniforms and were subject to army discipline, but
didn’t carry weapons or take part in battles. Their
duties were mainly to provide physical labour
(building, cleaning, loading and unloading anything
except munitions) in support of the military.
Neo-Romanticism A movement in British
painting, music and architecture. Artists looked
back to aspects of 19th century Romanticism,
particularly the ‘visionary’ landscape tradition of
William Blake and Samuel Palmer and reinterpreted
them in a more modern idiom.
William Blake (1757 – 1827) English artist,
philosopher, and poet, one of the most remarkable
figures of the Romantic period.
2: Literary References
Classical Mythology is the cultural reception
of myths from the ancients Greeks and Romans.
Along with philosophy and political thought,
mythology represents one of the major survivals
of classical antiquity throughout later Western
Culture. Classical mythology has provided subject
matter for all forms of visual, musical, and literary
art in the west, including poetry,drama, painting,
sculpture, opera, and ballet as well as forms of
popular culture.
Alexander Cozens (1717-86) English landscape
draughtsman. Between 1785 – 1786 Cozens
published his famous treatise ‘A New Method
of Assisting the Invention in Drawing Original
Compositions of Landscape’, in which he explained
his method of using accidental blots on the drawing
paper to stimulate the imagination by suggesting
landscape forms that could be developed into a
finished work.
Franz Kafka (3 July 1883 – 3 June 1924) An
influential German-language Czech author of
short stories and novels. His works focus on the
absurdity and paranoia of modern life.
Samuel Palmer (1805-81) English landscape
painter and etcher. In 1822 Palmer met William
Blake; the effect of Blake upon Palmer was to
intensify a characteristic mystical focus in his
work.
James Joyce (1882 –1941) An Irish novelist and
poet, considered to be one of the most influential
writers in the modernist avant-garde of the
early 20th century and is best known for Ulysses
(1922).
John Piper (1903-92) English painter, graphic
artist, designer and writer. During the 1930s Piper
was one of the leading British abstract artists,
but by the end of the decade he had become
disillusioned with non-representational art and
reverted to naturalism. He concentrated on
landscape and architectural views in a subjective
emotionally charged style that continued the
English Romantic tradition.
Arthur Rimbaud (Jean Nicolas Arthur Rimbaud)
(1854–1891) was a decadent French poet who
influenced modern literature, music and art. He
produced all his written work before the age of 20.
Literary anthologies A collection of literary
pieces, such as poems, short stories, or plays.
Graham Sutherland (1903-80) English painter,
graphic artist and designer. His paintings of the
1930s show a highly subjective response to nature.
Sutherland had a vivid gift of visual metaphor and
his landscapes are not scenic, but semi-abstract
patterns of haunting and monstrous shapes
rendered in his distinctively acidic colourings.
Une Saison en Enfer (A Season in Hell) is an
extended poem written and published in 1873 by
French writer Arthur Rimbaud.
Renaissance meaning ‘rebirth’, refers to the
intellectual and artistic movement that began in
Italy in the 14th century, culminated there in the
16th century, and influenced other parts of Europe
in a great variety of ways.
Non-Combatants Corps (NCC), set up in March
1916, was part of the army and run by regular
officers. Formed of COs (conscientious objectors)
29
References and Connections
Cold War (approx. 1945–1991) The continuing
state of political and military tension between the
powers of the Western world after the Second
World War, led by the United States and its NATO
allies and the communist world, led by the Soviet
Union, its satellite states and allies.
Henry Moore (1898-1986) An English sculptor,
painter and graphic artist who was recognized as
one of the greatest sculptors of the 20th century.
Titian (Tiziano Vecellio) (c.1485-1576) a painter
of the Venetian School.
Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665) a French painter,
active mainly in Rome. He is regarded as one of
the greatest French painter of the 17th century.
Orson Welles (May 6, 1915 – October 10,
1985) An American actor, director, writer and
producer who worked extensively in theatre, radio
and film. He co-wrote, directed and starred in the
film Citizen Cane in 1941.
4. The Male Figure
Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564) was a
Florentine sculptor, painter, architect, draughtsman
and poet. Michelangelo is considered to be one of
the greatest figures of the Renaissance.
3: Influences
John Minton (1917-57) British painter, graphic
artist, and designer. From 1946-1952 Minton
lived with Keith Vaughan. He was a leading
exponent of Neo-Romanticism.
Jacopo de Voragine (c. 1230–1298) was an
Italian chronicler and archbishop of Genoa. Author of
Legenda Aurea, the Golden Legend, a collection of
stories of the legendary lives of the greater saints of
the medieval church. Legenda Aurea was one of the
most popular religious works of the Middle Ages.
Robert Colquhoun (1914-62) and Robert
MacBryde (1913-66) British painters who met
at Glasgow School of Art. In 1941 they settled
in London and the studio they shared, known as
the studio of the Roberts, became a centre for
a number of young artists and writers, including
Keith Vaughan. Colquhoun was known for his
angular figure compositions.
5: The Landscape
Giorgione (1476/8-1510) was a Venetian painter.
He was one of the earliest painters to subordinate
subject-matter to the evocation of mood.
Cubism A movement in painting and sculpture,
recognized as one of the great turning points in
Western art. Cubism made a radical departure from
the idea of art as the imitation of nature that had
dominated European art since the Renaissance.
Prunella Clough (1919 – 1999) A British artist,
whose work closely observed details and scenes
from the landscape and evolved through a slow
process of layering and re-working.
Nicholas de Stael (1914-55) Russian-French
painter, born in St Petersburg. In the 1940s he
turned from figurative to abstract art, although
the forms he used were usually suggested by
real objects. His works often featured blocks or
patches of think paint (often applied with a knife),
subtly varied in colour and texture.
Georges Braque (1882 –1963) was a major
20th century French painter and sculptor who,
along with Pablo Picasso, developed Cubism.
Patrick Heron (1920 – 1999) was an English
painter, writer and designer, based in St. Ives,
Cornwall. In the 1950s he turned to abstract art
under the influence of American abstract painting.
American Abstract Expressionism was the
dominate movement in American painting in the
late 1940s and 1950s. It was the first major
development in American art to lead rather than
follow Europe.
30
Notes
Compiled and written by:
Katy Norris, Curatorial Assistant
Louise Bristow, Freelance Designer
Natalie Franklin, Learning Programme Coordinator
[email protected], 01243 770839
Telephone 01243 774557
[email protected]
www.pallant.org.uk
9 North Pallant, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 1TJ