.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
Vaughan’s studio catalogue lists Algerian as having been painted in 1961. However, it appears in his Whitechapel Gallery exhibition catalogue dated the following year. He probably returned to alter and adjust the work, as was his habit, having been unsatisfied with certain original elements of the composition.
The subject represents a standing Algerian male figure in an indeterminate setting that reminds us of the dry and dusty terrain of North Africa. It is largely an imaginary creation, since it predates the artist’s visit to North Africa by three or four years. Furthermore, on that occasion, Vaughan only visited Morocco and not Algeria. The figure, perhaps inspired by images of Algerian men wearing the traditional brown kashabia, decorative waistcoats and hoods, stands frontally with his arms by his side. His lowered head and general demeanour exudes a sense of melancholy.
Vaughan’s palette is characteristically economical and made up of a series of related russets, chocolate browns, burnt and raw umbers and a small area of brighter lemon yellow singing out from the composition. His application is fresh and his brushwork lively and inventive.
Algerian strikes a satisfying balance between descriptive figuration and formal abstraction, since the imagery operates successfully on both levels. We can clearly read anatomical forms such as the head, limbs, torso and genitals of the figure. These have been processed and formalised, reduced and distilled into a series of geometric, interlocking shapes and resolved into a harmonised arrangement. The struggle to achieve this synthesis took him some years and gave Vaughan many an anxious moment. He never considered himself to be an abstract painter and wrote in his journal on January 4, 1954: 'Up till now my preoccupation has been with the technical means. Now I have my instrument – but what to play on it? Abstraction is the way almost every other contemporary painter has solved this problem, but I cannot regard it as a solution. It is an escape. The language of pure form is too subjective'. Perhaps Vaughan’s greatest accomplishment, evident in the present work, was to fuse together, in a single arrangement, both figurative and abstract qualities. Some of his finest paintings possess similar qualities of both observation and a formulaic conception.
Vaughan’s studio notebooks indicate that at this time he was experimenting with oil paint by lightly brushing one pigment over a previously painted area with a slower drying rate. As a result the upper pigment cracked and created interesting textures. This entirely intentional effect adds to the surface richness, and can clearly be seen here. Vaughan employed it in several of his major works including Red Figure Group (The Departure) and Laocoön Figure, both painted two years later.
We are grateful to Gerard Hastings whose new book, Awkward Aretfacts: The ‘Erotic Fantasies’ of Keith Vaughan, is published by Pagham Press in association with the Keith Vaughan Society.
The subject represents a standing Algerian male figure in an indeterminate setting that reminds us of the dry and dusty terrain of North Africa. It is largely an imaginary creation, since it predates the artist’s visit to North Africa by three or four years. Furthermore, on that occasion, Vaughan only visited Morocco and not Algeria. The figure, perhaps inspired by images of Algerian men wearing the traditional brown kashabia, decorative waistcoats and hoods, stands frontally with his arms by his side. His lowered head and general demeanour exudes a sense of melancholy.
Vaughan’s palette is characteristically economical and made up of a series of related russets, chocolate browns, burnt and raw umbers and a small area of brighter lemon yellow singing out from the composition. His application is fresh and his brushwork lively and inventive.
Algerian strikes a satisfying balance between descriptive figuration and formal abstraction, since the imagery operates successfully on both levels. We can clearly read anatomical forms such as the head, limbs, torso and genitals of the figure. These have been processed and formalised, reduced and distilled into a series of geometric, interlocking shapes and resolved into a harmonised arrangement. The struggle to achieve this synthesis took him some years and gave Vaughan many an anxious moment. He never considered himself to be an abstract painter and wrote in his journal on January 4, 1954: 'Up till now my preoccupation has been with the technical means. Now I have my instrument – but what to play on it? Abstraction is the way almost every other contemporary painter has solved this problem, but I cannot regard it as a solution. It is an escape. The language of pure form is too subjective'. Perhaps Vaughan’s greatest accomplishment, evident in the present work, was to fuse together, in a single arrangement, both figurative and abstract qualities. Some of his finest paintings possess similar qualities of both observation and a formulaic conception.
Vaughan’s studio notebooks indicate that at this time he was experimenting with oil paint by lightly brushing one pigment over a previously painted area with a slower drying rate. As a result the upper pigment cracked and created interesting textures. This entirely intentional effect adds to the surface richness, and can clearly be seen here. Vaughan employed it in several of his major works including Red Figure Group (The Departure) and Laocoön Figure, both painted two years later.
We are grateful to Gerard Hastings whose new book, Awkward Aretfacts: The ‘Erotic Fantasies’ of Keith Vaughan, is published by Pagham Press in association with the Keith Vaughan Society.