Sixth Assembly of Figures

Vaughan’s close friend Professor John Ball shed light on the function and meaning of Vaughan’s ‘Assembly’ paintings:

'It is useful for us to use the Nine Assemblies as focal points round which to organise our understanding of Vaughan’s progress. He certainly regarded them as special, thought of them as summations of his work to date. In general, they are marked by presenting several figures, grouped as if poised for some action, but Vaughan was always at pains to deny any narrative content, and to emphasise that they were assembled for no particular purpose. He was not entirely consistent in using the title ‘Assembly’. The Fifth (‘Two Figures in Sequence’) has only two figures; the Third (‘Harvest Assembly’) shows a group of farm workers assembled for the harvest, while the Ninth (‘Eldorado Banal’) has a slight narrative content in that it is derived from Baudelaire’s poem ‘Un Voyage à Cythère’ and shows some of the characters and actions from the poem.' (Professor J. Ball, undated and unpublished notes, c. 2007)

An indeterminate number of figures is contained within the quilt-like composition of Vaughan’s Sixth Assembly of Figures, one of his most resolved, inventive and eloquent pictorial statements. Human presence is implied not only in the amorphous groups but also in the physicality of his sensuous application. Pigment is applied to the canvas surface in dense coats, transparent layers and dry-brush scrubbings as an equivalent, rather than a visual description, of flesh. Areas have been scraped and scratched away with a sharp scalpel to reveal surprising textures and undercoats. The tilted, cruciform configuration at the right may be a single figure or an interpenetration of two individuals, merging into each other and the surrounding landscape. Only the shape of a head and shoulders help determine another figure at the lower left. The geometric blocks of colour, which variously advance and recede, add formal structure to the sensuous depiction of creamy, fleshy tissue.

Over the course of twenty-five years Vaughan produced nine major canvases to which he applied the title Assembly of Figures. The first dates from 1952 and the last was completed in 1976. The ‘Assemblies’ were periodic summations of his technical progress, as though he set himself the specific task of composing the series of complex pictorial essays after periods of development. In the early versions we see him quoting previously used poses and gestures. He organized and arranged his compositions with painstaking care, often making highly finished gouache and pencil studies ahead of tackling the full-scale work.

The ‘Assembly’ paintings share certain pictorial characteristics. The protagonists are invariable male, naked and generally disoriented. This makes identification of individuals, social class or profession, impossible to ascertain. The settings are beachscapes or semi-abstracted environments, whereby figure and location are melded together into a coherent, plastic vision. The activities in which the members of the assembly engage are often difficult to decipher and the purpose of their coming together is usually obscure. Vaughan avoided narrative clarity to engender pictorial interest and generate enigmatic ambiguity. However, one may presume his congregations, depicted at the mercy of the elements, characterize aspects of mankind in general – naked, vulnerable, sluggish and awkward in forging both personal or social relationships.

Some of Vaughan’s journal entries and a handful of interviews add to our understanding of his ‘Assembly’ paintings:

'These compositions rely on the assumption (hard to justify perhaps, but none the less real to me) that the human figure, the nude, is still a valid symbol for the expression of man’s aspirations and reactions to the life of his time. No longer incorporated in the church or any codified system of belief, the Assemblies are deprived of literary significance or illustrative meaning. The participants have not assembled for any particular purpose such as a virgin birth, martyrdom, or inauguration of a new power station. In so far as their activity is aimless and their assembly pointless they might be said to symbolize an age of doubt against an age of faith. But that is not the point. Although the elements are recognisably human, their meaning is plastic. They attempt a summary and condensed statement of the relationship between things, expressed through a morphology common to all organic and inorganic matter.' (K. Vaughan, 'Painter’s Progress', Studio, August 1958).

'I want the best of myself for my work. I still think I have done nothing better that the ‘August 4th Bather’, 1961 – ‘Ganymede’ (1962) is perhaps as good and the large ‘Assembly’ (Sixth). Both these pictures I worked on continuously from Whitechapel until I went away – Since then it has been small reconnoitring panels.' (K. Vaughan, Journal, December 7, 1962)

We are very grateful to Gerard Hastings, whose forthcoming book Keith Vaughan: The Graphic Art, is soon to be published by Pagham Press, for his assistance in preparing this catalogue entry.

Sir Nicholas Goodison commented: ‘The commission to paint the picture came from the Methodist Minister Rev. Douglas Wollen in 1962. His son Roger Wollen still has two letters from Vaughan to his father, who had seen Vaughan's work at the retrospective exhibition at the Whitechapel (which included paintings of Lazarus and St Sebastian) and asked him if he would be interested in a commission. Vaughan wrote to him on 10 May 1962 from 9 Belsize Park: 'I am quite interested in the idea of a commission. I should however make one or two things clear. I am not a member of any established church - nor am I a believer in an anthropomorphic God or a Divine Jesus. I suppose I'm what is called a humanist … I do not want to undertake anything on false pretences, nor would I be able to compromise with the Church's point of view. I could do another Lazarus painting - a shipwreck of St Paul (I visited the coast on which he was supposed to have been shipwrecked) or any 'religious' subject which could be treated in a purely human way. This would have to exclude any situation in which Jesus himself appeared since I could only treat him as another human being which could be wrong from the Church's point of view. I would in fact be willing to accept a provisional commission with no obligation on your part to buy the picture if you thought it unsuitable.'

It appears that he received the commission, but on 17 March 1963 he wrote to the Rev. Wollen: 'I started a canvas last year on the Shipwreck of S. Paul but as the picture developed the specific theme gave way more and more before the need for purely plastic relationships with which I was concerned at the time. So that in the end, although I am fairly satisfied with the painting, I felt hardly justified anymore in calling it the 'Shipwreck of S. Paul' & have given it the non-committal title of Sixth Assembly of Figures & as such I am putting it in as one of the three recent paintings I have been invited to contribute to the CAS (Contemporary Art Society) show at the Tate in June … But I do not feel I could submit it to you as a proper solution to the problem of painting the Shipwreck of S. Paul. That is why I did not say anything about it. However it is here. Or if you prefer you could see it when it is hanging in the Tate.' Wollen did not pursue the purchase.’