Keith Vaughan (1912-1977)
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Keith Vaughan (1912-1977)

Figure Group at Cumae

Details
Keith Vaughan (1912-1977)
Figure Group at Cumae
signed and dated 'Vaughan/53' (lower right) and inscribed and dated again 'FIGURE GROUP AT CUMAE/1953' (on the artist's label attached to the stretcher)
oil on canvas
33 x 35 in. (83.8 x 88.9 cm.)
Painted in 1953.
Provenance
Purchased at the 1953 exhibition by T.W. Patterson.
Lady Strauss, her sale; Sotheby's, London, 23 November 1994, lot 78.
with Daniel Katz, London.
with Hazlitt Holland-Hibbert, London, where purchased by the present owner in 2005.
Literature
Exhibition catalogue, Keith Vaughan: Retrospective Exhibition, London, Whitechapel Art Gallery, 1962, p. 51, no. 139, pl. XXXIX.
Exhibition catalogue, Keith Vaughan: Images of Man - Figurative Paintings 1946-1980, London, Geffrye Museum, 1981, p. 40, no. 21, illustrated.
M. Yorke, Keith Vaughan - his Life and Work, London, 1990. pp. 178-179, illustrated.
P. Vann and G. Hastings, Keith Vaughan, Farnham, 2012, p. 100, no. 102.
A. Hepworth and I. Massey, Keith Vaughan: The Mature Oils 1946-1977, Commentary and Comprehensive Catalogue, Bristol, 2012, p. 83, no. AH148.
Exhibited
London, Leicester Galleries, New Pictures by Humphrey Spender: Recent Paintings by Keith Vaughan: Welsh and other Paintings by Nan Youngman, October 1953, no. 32.
Newcastle-on-Tyne, Arts Council of Great Britain, University of Durham, Hatton Gallery, Keith Vaughan Retrospective, 1956, no. 25.
London, Whitechapel Art Gallery, Keith Vaughan: Retrospective Exhibition, March - April 1962, no. 139.
London, Geffrye Museum, Keith Vaughan: Images of Man - Figurative Paintings 1946-1980, May - June 1981, no. 21: this exhibition travelled to Birmingham, City Museum and Art Gallery, July - September 1981.
Special notice
Artist's Resale Right ("Droit de Suite"). Artist's Resale Right Regulations 2006 apply to this lot, the buyer agrees to pay us an amount equal to the resale royalty provided for in those Regulations, and we undertake to the buyer to pay such amount to the artist's collection agent.

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Angus Granlund
Angus Granlund

Lot Essay


Cumae was one of the first locations in Italy to be colonised by the ancient Greeks. Later it was incorporated into the Roman Empire being strategically important since the open sea offered safe anchorage, to the west and, to the east, fertile plains sustained rich agriculture.

Three figures, communicating a sense of apprehension and trepidation, occupy the foreground with the sea and distant cliffs forming the backdrop. This is one of Vaughan’s few paintings which might imply a narrative since he characterises them as warriors or wardens defending their newly acquired territory. The two at the right clasp sticks and, above the head of the other, we can make out that he also originally held a weapon behind his back. On a more universal level, perhaps they express the vulnerabilities, anxieties and primitive fears of mankind in general. Whatever the case, the composition echoes the photographs Vaughan took of his friends playing on the beach at Pagham in the late 1930s, where animated groups of figures are placed against the sky and ocean.

Vaughan employs a largely monochromatic palette of harmonised blues and creams. The pigment is applied in broad, gestural stokes while bold outlines describe the anatomical forms.

We are very grateful to Gerard Hastings for preparing this catalogue entry, whose new book on Keith Vaughan’s graphic art is to be published later in the year by Pagham Press in Association with the Keith Vaughan Society.

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