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Lot Essay
The subject of a figure in an orchard picking fruit or in a landscape reaching up to branches occurs frequently in Vaughan’s painting. On a formal level it opened up the human form and the gesture increased the expressive potential of the male figure. Here a young boy hangs on to a branch above his head. His clothing indicates it is perhaps summertime, though the bare branches of the tree might indicate otherwise. He is isolated and alone, save for the presence of his dog, like so many of Vaughan’s paintings of the human form. A sense of melancholy pervades the scene.
One of Vaughan’s great achievements was to develop the medium of gouache away from its use in advertising and commercial studios and to significantly increase its expressive range. Here gouache and India ink are combined to play off against opaque passages of colour. The effect is strengthened by the inclusion of Vaughan’s ubiquitous scratched-in, inky lines which delineate the subject and reinforce the design.
We are grateful to Gerard Hastings, whose new book Awkward Artefacts: The ‘Erotic Fantasies’ of Keith Vaughan is published by Pagham Press in association with the Keith Vaughan Society, for preparing this catalogue entry.
One of Vaughan’s great achievements was to develop the medium of gouache away from its use in advertising and commercial studios and to significantly increase its expressive range. Here gouache and India ink are combined to play off against opaque passages of colour. The effect is strengthened by the inclusion of Vaughan’s ubiquitous scratched-in, inky lines which delineate the subject and reinforce the design.
We are grateful to Gerard Hastings, whose new book Awkward Artefacts: The ‘Erotic Fantasies’ of Keith Vaughan is published by Pagham Press in association with the Keith Vaughan Society, for preparing this catalogue entry.