Two Figures by the Shore

Details

KEITH VAUGHAN (1912-1977)
Two Figures by the Shore
stamped with initials 'KV' (under the mount), signed and inscribed 'Two Figures by the Shore/Keith Vaughan' (on the reverse)
ink, watercolour and gouache on paper laid on card
7 1⁄4 x 5 1⁄4 in. (18.4 x 13.3 cm.)
Executed circa 1942.

Provenance

Dr. Patrick Woodcock.
Sebastian Walker.
His sale; Sotheby's, London, 20 November 1991, lot 11, where purchased for the present collection.

Literature

Exhibition catalogue, Keith Vaughan: Paintings and Drawings, London, Osborne Samuel, 2007, p. 54, no. 25, illustrated.
P. Vann and G. Hastings, Keith Vaughan, Farnham, 2012, pp. 54, 151, pl. 154.

Exhibited

London, Osborne Samuel, Keith Vaughan: Paintings and Drawings, May - June 2007, no. 25.
Chichester, Pallant House Gallery, Keith Vaughan: Romanticism to Abstraction, March - June 2012, catalogue not traced.

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.

Conditions of sale

Brought to you by

Amelia Walker Director, Specialist Head of Private & Iconic Collections

awalker@christies.com +44 20 7389 2085

Lot Essay

Two Figures by the Shore is a quintessentially Neo-Romantic picture. It was painted while Vaughan was serving in the army during the war. Due to rationing and military restrictions he was unable to carry out large-scale work or produce easel paintings. Instead, he turned his hand to works on paper executed with gouache, pen and ink or any other humble materials he could squeeze into his knapsack. Influenced by the jewel-like intensity and poetic visions of Blake and Palmer, he produced several small, but intensely elegiac, images often depicting nocturnal scenes.

The present work, having been forgotten for decades, was discovered in 1980 at the bottom of a bedroom cupboard belonging to Dr. Patrick Woodcock, Vaughan’s life-long friend and executor.

We are very grateful to Gerard Hastings, whose forthcoming book Keith Vaughan: The Graphic Art, is soon to be published by Pagham Press, for his assistance in preparing this catalogue entry.

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