Pupitre

The young man at his desk is in the process of making a drawing. He looks up as if for inspiration, perhaps into a mirror, but more likely towards an image of a muse. Echoes of the ancient Greek myth of Pygmalion come to mind; there is a sense of longing for the unattainable as he tries to capture its likeness. We might be forgiven for interpreting the depiction of the young artist as a quasi, self-portrait. At the time Vaughan painted this, his journals inform us that he had found companionship, intellectual stimulus and a genuine sense of camaraderie among his fellow members of the Non-Combatant Corps. He attached himself emotionally, over the course of the war, to various barrack mates but was unable to locate the intimacy or human affection he craved. One year before he had been separated, due to army transfers, from a young, married soldier named Bill Greest, who had been the object of his unrequited affection and fixation for three years. Vaughan cherished his memory for the rest of his life, even writing of him in his final volume of journals over thirty years later.

We are grateful to Gerard Hastings, for compiling this note. His books Awkward Artefacts: The 'Erotic Fantasies’ of Keith Vaughan and Paradise Found and Lost: Keith Vaughan in Essex, have just been republished in their third editions, by Pagham Press.