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Lot Essay
In 1964, Vaughan bought a row of derelict workmen’s cottages in the heart of the Essex countryside and renovated them to create a large single house for weekends and holidays. He converted one of the upper rooms at Harrow Hill into a studio where he worked on small-scale oil and gouache paintings.
A late landscape, Sandhill I is the first of two versions painted in 1974. Sandhill is a location in Essex consisting of a small group of buildings, but Vaughan’s painting bears no resemblance to the location whatsoever. He often gave local place names as titles to his paintings, finding them quirky and attractive, or decided on a title in the course of working. Sandhill I is a case in point.
The imagery, however, is drawn from a precise location closer to Harrow Hill. Some years after Vaughan bought the property, an enormous electricity pylon was erected in a field opposite. Considered an eyesore, the pylon earned Vaughan £500 in compensation from the Electricity Board, which was precisely the amount he had paid for the original buildings and land.
The painting is underpinned by a strong, formal composition of flat fields of colour, with contrasting painterly strokes added to the surface. At first, it appears to be a completely abstract work.
However, if we read the upper area as the sky, with a pronounced horizon, the succulent blue brushwork may be interpreted as the girders of the pylon. The beige and cream coloured areas suggest sandy, fallow fields, while other patches and strips of colour evoke winter vegetation, agricultural buildings, open barn doors (a favourite squared-off motif) and vertical tree boughs. Sandhill I is an example of Vaughan’s late style, in which rich impasto, thickly dragged across the surface, acts as a counterpoint to diluted washes and wipes of colour.
We are very grateful to Gerard Hastings for preparing this catalogue entry.
A late landscape, Sandhill I is the first of two versions painted in 1974. Sandhill is a location in Essex consisting of a small group of buildings, but Vaughan’s painting bears no resemblance to the location whatsoever. He often gave local place names as titles to his paintings, finding them quirky and attractive, or decided on a title in the course of working. Sandhill I is a case in point.
The imagery, however, is drawn from a precise location closer to Harrow Hill. Some years after Vaughan bought the property, an enormous electricity pylon was erected in a field opposite. Considered an eyesore, the pylon earned Vaughan £500 in compensation from the Electricity Board, which was precisely the amount he had paid for the original buildings and land.
The painting is underpinned by a strong, formal composition of flat fields of colour, with contrasting painterly strokes added to the surface. At first, it appears to be a completely abstract work.
However, if we read the upper area as the sky, with a pronounced horizon, the succulent blue brushwork may be interpreted as the girders of the pylon. The beige and cream coloured areas suggest sandy, fallow fields, while other patches and strips of colour evoke winter vegetation, agricultural buildings, open barn doors (a favourite squared-off motif) and vertical tree boughs. Sandhill I is an example of Vaughan’s late style, in which rich impasto, thickly dragged across the surface, acts as a counterpoint to diluted washes and wipes of colour.
We are very grateful to Gerard Hastings for preparing this catalogue entry.