Keith Vaughan (1912-1977)
Artist's Resale Right ("Droit de Suite"). Artist's… Read more PROPERTY OF A DISTINGUISHED COLLECTOR
Keith Vaughan (1912-1977)

Castle on the Moors

Details
Keith Vaughan (1912-1977)
Castle on the Moors
signed and dated 'Keith Vaughan/43' (lower centre); inscribed and dated again 'Castle on the Moors 1943' (on the artist's label attached to the backboard)
ink, watercolour and gouache
4 x 6 ½ in. (10.2 x 16.5 cm.)
Provenance
with Redfern Gallery, London, where purchased by Major Leister Tighe, 5 April 1983.
Anonymous sale; Duke's, Dorchester, 17 September 2015, lot 264, where purchased by the present owner.
Special notice

Artist's Resale Right ("Droit de Suite"). Artist's Resale Right Regulations 2006 apply to this lot, the buyer agrees to pay us an amount equal to the resale royalty provided for in those Regulations, and we undertake to the buyer to pay such amount to the artist's collection agent.

Brought to you by

Alice Murray
Alice Murray

Lot Essay

Whenever he could get away from his army duties at Eden Camp during the 1940s, Vaughan took himself off on long walks and bicycle rides, carrying with him his studio equipment in a knapsack. This consisted of a few bottles of ink, some pencils, wax crayons, tubes of gouache and a candle stub with which to make his wax resists.

He made many detailed studies of the Yorkshire landscape, noting geological and architectural features that attracted him, in this case Helmsley Castle, a few miles North West of the camp. These were then worked up afterwards back in the barracks.

The present work is interesting as it is one of several that Vaughan returned to many years later. On top of his original drawing, made in situ, he has blocked in certain forms and simplified the detail and structure of the design with passages of alternating translucent and opaque use of gouache. His signature too dates from a later period. The result is a concentrated image that captures the bleakness of the landscape and the climate of the north country.

We are grateful to Gerard Hastings, whose new book Awkward Artefacts: The ‘Erotic Fantasies’ of Keith Vaughan is published by Pagham Press in association with the Keith Vaughan Society, for preparing this catalogue entry.
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