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Lot Essay
During the war Vaughan served in the Royal Pioneer Corps and was stationed in Wiltshire at Codford. Close by the army camp was Ashton Gifford, an early 19th century house, surrounded by walled gardens, now overrun with tangles of nettles and brambles. These provided inspiration for several of his war-time gouaches, even after he had left the area and was stationed in Yorkshire. Vaughan and his fellow recruits worked as labourers and navies, in waist high grass and jungles of weed and ivy, clearing the land around the house. Here a figure pauses in thought while his comrades continue to work. The dense vegetation, dark and brooding atmosphere contribute to this being a typically Neo-Romantic work.
When Vaughan entered the Non-Combatant Corps he was obliged to modify his studio practice rather drastically. Art supplies were uncertain, and rationing meant that few materials of quality were available. Living in tents or cramped barrack room quarters meant that slow-drying oil paint and a free-standing easel were simply not practicable. It was at this point that he abandoned painting with oils and his association with gouache began in earnest. On New Year's Day 1941 he scraped together a makeshift portable studio that could be packed into his regulation knapsack: included a large drawing book, pencils, erasers, brushes, pens and various bottles of black and sepia inks. He proceeded to record every aspect of his army life, the horrors of war and the surrounding landscape in which he found himself. He made numerous pen and sepia ink drawings adding washes to create tonal variations. Vaughan not only recorded life around him, but also produced more poetic, expressive works of a more personal nature. These reflect his sense of emotional isolation and loneliness.
By 1942 Vaughan's ambitions had grown. He was always on the look out for new materials and added to his knapsack a few pots of designers' gouache and some yellow and green wax crayons, the only colours he could lay his hands on. With these he attempted to recover some of the firmness and depth of the oil paint he had been using prior to the war. He gave the paintings of this period the generic title of 'gouache' even though he confessed, 'My early pictures were not, of course, pure gouache. They were mixtures of wax crayon, Indian ink and gouache. And the chemical properties of these different kinds of materials to a large extent determine their own control. They react on each other in certain ways which can be exploited but can not be prevented. You might call it a volatile medium' (K. Vaughan, Notes on Painting, 1963, unpublished).
We are very grateful to Gerard Hastings for his assistance cataloguing the present lot and lots 220, 221 and 231. He is currently working on Keith Vaughan: The Photographs, to be published in June by Pagham Press.
When Vaughan entered the Non-Combatant Corps he was obliged to modify his studio practice rather drastically. Art supplies were uncertain, and rationing meant that few materials of quality were available. Living in tents or cramped barrack room quarters meant that slow-drying oil paint and a free-standing easel were simply not practicable. It was at this point that he abandoned painting with oils and his association with gouache began in earnest. On New Year's Day 1941 he scraped together a makeshift portable studio that could be packed into his regulation knapsack: included a large drawing book, pencils, erasers, brushes, pens and various bottles of black and sepia inks. He proceeded to record every aspect of his army life, the horrors of war and the surrounding landscape in which he found himself. He made numerous pen and sepia ink drawings adding washes to create tonal variations. Vaughan not only recorded life around him, but also produced more poetic, expressive works of a more personal nature. These reflect his sense of emotional isolation and loneliness.
By 1942 Vaughan's ambitions had grown. He was always on the look out for new materials and added to his knapsack a few pots of designers' gouache and some yellow and green wax crayons, the only colours he could lay his hands on. With these he attempted to recover some of the firmness and depth of the oil paint he had been using prior to the war. He gave the paintings of this period the generic title of 'gouache' even though he confessed, 'My early pictures were not, of course, pure gouache. They were mixtures of wax crayon, Indian ink and gouache. And the chemical properties of these different kinds of materials to a large extent determine their own control. They react on each other in certain ways which can be exploited but can not be prevented. You might call it a volatile medium' (K. Vaughan, Notes on Painting, 1963, unpublished).
We are very grateful to Gerard Hastings for his assistance cataloguing the present lot and lots 220, 221 and 231. He is currently working on Keith Vaughan: The Photographs, to be published in June by Pagham Press.