Keith Vaughan

The Estate of the Artist
Prunella Clough
Private Collection

The largest: Structurally sound, the edges have been unevenly cut, and the corners are rounded. There is minor surface dirt and studio detritus to the work. There are abrasions to isolated areas of the extreme edges, with areas of resultant loss, most apparent in the bottom right corner and along the top edge. This excepting the work appears to be in good overall condition. Ultraviolet light reveals some very minor isolated spots of fluorescence, which appear in keeping with the artist's technique. The smaller: Structurally sound, the edges have been unevenly cut, and the corners rounded. There is an applied strip of board down the far right hand edge, with nail heads visible below the paint surface. There is minor surface dirt and studio detritus to the work. There are abrasions to isolated areas of the extreme edges, most noticeably the bottom right corner, along the top edge and down the left hand side. Craquelure is visible to isolated areas of the work, including but not limited to the black pigment surrounding the far left figure and the black pigment in the bottom right hand corner. Further very minor surface scratches are visible to the right hand quadrant and there is an old vertical surface scratch running through the ray of light on the left. Ultraviolet light reveals one small spot of fluorescence just above the sail of the boat on the left, which may be an old retouching. Housed in a thin, dark wooden frame and set behind glass, float-mounted against a cream card. Framed separately. Please telephone the department on +44 (0) 207 293 6424 if you have any questions regarding the present lot.
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NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

In 1951 Clement Atlee’s Labour government organized the Festival of Britain, (exactly a century after the Great Exhibition of 1851), to promote a feeling of well-being and recovery in Britain after the Second World War. Run-down factories and derelict warehouses were cleared away over a four and a half acre site on the South Bank to make way for the Dome of Discovery, designed by Ralph Tubbs. This aluminium and concrete structure was the world’s largest dome at that time with a 111 meter diameter and a height of 27 metres. It housed galleries and exhibition areas on various levels all connected by escalators. These showed work celebrating discoveries in science, technology and the arts. 8,500,000 people visited the South Bank during the course of the summer months.

 

In 1950 Vaughan had been commissioned to make a large-scale painting on the general theme of discovery, which was to be housed in one of the galleries within the dome. He created an enormous mural, some fifty feet long, entitled At the Beginning of Time. This was the largest work he ever painted and it was loosely based on narrative elements of the Theseus legend. Such a colossal painting necessitated a series of preparatory studies in pencil, gouache and oil, and the present work was the final and most resolved of the oil sketches he produced. The final painting was made directly from this small-scale version.  

 

The panoramic vista is presented in a continuous narrative layout and in idealistic terms. The left side of the composition, complete with symbolic animal skull, represents the passing of the old world; the right side represents the dawn of a new order, with a boat about to set off towards a braver new world. The male nude figures, distributed throughout the scene, in a stage-like manner, echo Vaughan’s interest in the theatre and especially in classical ballet. The heroic central figure, (more akin to a Prometheus than a Theseus), holds aloft a beacon of light, a symbol of hope for this new era. Vaughan has employed a limited palette of high-key reds, oranges and greens, as well as a simple, but bold design ensuring the impact, or gestalt of the painting could be easily read from a distance within the cavernous exhibition space.

 

In October 1951, Winston Churchill’s Conservative government was elected and his very first instruction was to clear the South Bank of that “three-dimensional socialist propaganda”. The dome was torn down and sold for scrap. Vaughan’s mural was destroyed since it was too large to store or to sell off.

 

We are grateful to Gerard Hastings, (co-author of Keith Vaughan, a new monograph on the artist, published by Lund Humphries, October 2012) for his kind assistance in preparing the catalogue entry for lots 183 and 184.