Studies of babies

This set of studies of a baby boy's head was made from life and fits into a tradition in British art of the representation of young children. Exponents of this genre include Ford Maddox Brown, Augustus John, and more recently Henry Moore and John Bratby. The unidentified sitter provided Vaughan with not only a charming subject but the opportunity to make eight technical exercises which investigate the form of the child's head and explore it from a variety of angles. The drawing dates from the late 1940s or early very 1950s, which indicates that the sitter is now approaching his sixties.

G.H.