Keith Vaughan

Lithograph printed in colours, 1951, on wove paper

With margins, in generally good condition apart from overall discolouration, scattered fox marks (most apparent at sheet edges), horizontal creases at the lower sheet corners, light soiling in the margins, some scattered handling creases, hinged to mount at upper sheet corners verso, remains of paper tape at sheet corners verso, framed.
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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."

We are grateful to Gerard Hastings, whose latest book, Paradise Gained and Lost: Keith Vaughan in Essex, will be published in the spring by Pagham Press, for his kind assistance with the cataloguing of the present work.

The Artists International Association and Schools Prints Ltd. published a portfolio of twenty-one lithographic prints as part of the Festival of Britain celebrations. Their intention was to illustrate contemporary aspects of British life. The images were printed by the Miller’s Press and distributed by J. Lyons and Co., (the restaurant-chain, food-manufacturing, and hotel corporation), the Redfern Gallery and Better Books Ltd. Their intention was to disseminate fine art and place it in public spaces. John Minton and William Scott also contributed to the project. Vaughan’s Festival Dancers was included in the collection at the affordable price of £4/4s.

The two dancers, eyes closed and arms raised, echo each other’s gestures, creating a rhythmic, animated composition. Their anatomy is condensed, simplified and partially abstracted, in accordance with Vaughan’s treatment of the male figure at this time. They appear to be naked and, since they have no represented genitalia, seem somewhat androgynous. The pose of the figures, far from being a random invention or a merely decorative design, actually signifies something specific. Arms extended above the dancers’ heads in this manner, derive from ballet’s, so-called, ‘fifth position’. In classical choreography the gesture, executed with rolling hand movements, is used to signify that a dance is about to commence. Vaughan, an extremely knowledgeable balletomane, would have certainly known this.

Vaughan had been intensely affected by classical ballet, since his early years.

As a teenager he attended performances of the Ballets Russes and witnessed one of the company’s last performances, since Diaghilev died one month later and the company folded. Included in the programme was Prokofiev’s brand-new ballet, Le Fils Prodigue, choreographed by Balanchine with décor by Georges Rouault. Serge Lifar, who created the role in Paris, only weeks before, danced that day. What the sixteen-year-old Vaughan witnessed affected him profoundly:

Lifar, when I first saw him in 1929. Blood streaming down his legs after dragging himself across the rough boards of Covent Garden at the end of ‘Fils Prodigue’. Sweat streaming down his lynx-like face and bare shoulders. That was my first glimpse of a world which I knew I belonged to but never really entered...nothing can recreate the staggering wonder of that Saturday afternoon when I first saw him in 1929 (Keith Vaughan, Journal, November 11, 1973).

Gerard Hastings