Modern and Contemporary Art

Note

We gratefully acknowledge Gerard Hastings, The Keith Vaughan Society, for his assistance cataloguing this lot.

The present lot is a drawing related to an oil painting called Figures by a Torn Tree Branch from 1946-47. Very often during this period, Vaughan based his works on observations and encounters he had while walking through the landscape. He would later draw his findings from memory, and his works coalesced into a study such as this. The most successful of these images were often used to create oil paintings.

Vaughan’s extensive use of wax resist was based on a technique he learned from fellow British artist Graham Sutherland. The process entailed brushing candle wax with diluted ink or gouache, creating a surface mottled and speckled with deposits of pigment. Vaughan called the combination of gouache, Indian ink and wax crayon his ‘volatile medium,’ and used this method since he had little or no access to oil paint during the war.

The limited palette here is also typical of the early to mid-40s, when the artist was in the Non-Combatant Corps and materials were rationed and therefore difficult to come by. These restrictions affected his later use of color, where it was used sparingly or in harmonious, related combinations.

The two men in Figures by a Fallen Tree are probably workers, judging by their flat caps. Similar figures appear in his paintings at this time (stone masons, gardeners, farmers, wood cutters), often resting or taking a break from their labors. - based on information provided by Gerard Hastings, The Keith Vaughan Society.