Keith Vaughan
Born – Selsey Bill, England 1912
Died – London, England 1977
Keith Vaughan received no formal art training and struggled throughout his artistic life to find his own visual language. He had an interest in visual art theorists and the artistic and the literary achievements of the French. This was qualified by the challenge to resolve the conflict between the formal and the humanistic, expressive elements of painting. He sought to arrange non-precise forms, focusing almost exclusively on the depiction of male nudes. From the 1950s this preoccupation is realised via classical compositions orchestrated by Vaughan’s talent as a colourist. His paintings of bathers, such as Small Assembly of Figures, acknowledge Cézanne as a lifelong source of admiration. Vaughan produced his most striking pictures during the 1960s. In other figure compositions, each group becomes a solidly wrought moonlight of flesh; a palette of warm blues, lilacs and pinks supersedes the brown and olive tones dominating earlier works. His dalliance with photography materialized on canvas in cropped figures, profiles and silhouettes. His works do not narrate the trauma of his personal life but are transmutations of the sexual tensions which dictated it and which undoubtedly culminated in his suicide in 1977.
Masterpieces:
- Landscape with Figures
- Landscape with Figure
Text: The A-Z of Art, Nicola Hodge and Libby Anson.
Books About keith vaughan
Keith Vaughan: Journals, 1939-1977
Keith Vaughan
Buy on Amazon
The Complete Idiot's Guide to Flour-Free Eating
Keith Wayne Berkowitz M.D.
Buy on Amazon
Keith Vaughan 1912-1977: Drawings of the Young Male
Buy on Amazon