View full screen - View 1 of Lot 301. Figure.

Auction Closed

November 15, 03:40 PM GMT

Estimate

6,000 - 8,000 GBP

Lot Details

Description

Keith Vaughan

1912 - 1977

Figure


signed Keith Vaughan and dated /48 (lower right)

gouache and lithographic crayon on paper

unframed (sheet): 38 by 28cm.; 15 by 11in.

framed: 64 by 52cm.; 25¼ by 20½in.

Executed in 1948.


We are grateful to Gerard Hastings for his kind assistance with the cataloguing of these works. His two books Awkward Artefacts: ‘The Erotic Fantasies’ of Keith Vaughan and Paradise Found and Lost: Keith Vaughan in Essex have just been re-issued by Pagham Press and may be purchased from the Keith Vaughan Society.

Matthiesen Ltd., London

John Weston

Private Collection, LA, from whom acquired by the present owner

Vaughan made his first lithograph in 1949 and the present work, executed the year before, was probably a trial run for a series of intended prints. The model for this work was John McGuinness - identified by his broad, flat nose - whom Vaughan had met that year and who became his muse. He posed for many works over the course of 1948-9, including the lithograph The Woodman (Blue Boy), 1949. McGuinness was ill-educated and possessed large workmen’s hands and an appealing physicality. He also features in Fishermen at Mevagissey, 1948 (Private Collection, illustrated in Anthony Hepworth and Ian Massey, Keith Vaughan The Mature Oils 1946-1977, Sansom & Company, Bristol, 2012, AH47, p. 53).


John Weston (1932-2023 ), was an award winning author and LGBTQ advocate in the US.


Gerard Hastings