Keith Vaughan

Acquired directly from the Artist through The Piccadilly Gallery, London, by the husband of the present owner, December 1968

London, Leicester Galleries, Keith Vaughan: New Paintings, June 1956, cat. no.24;
Wakefield, Wakefield City Art Gallery, Vision and Reality: An Exhibition of Contemporary Paintings and Sculpture, September - October 1956 (details untraced);
Bradford, City of Bradford Art Gallery, 1957 (details untraced);
Paris, Galerie Creuze, La Peinture Britannique Contemporaine, October 1957, cat. no.105;
Bristol, Royal West of England Academy, Keith Vaughan: Retrospective, 1958, cat. no.89 (as Autumn Landscape with Figures);
London, Whitechapel Art Gallery, Keith Vaughan: Retrospective, March - April 1962, cat. no.193.

Anthony Hepworth & Ian Massey, Keith Vaughan: The Mature Oils 1946-1977, Sansom & Company, Bristol, 2012, cat. no.AH211, p.96.

The canvas is original. There is an historic and restored damage to the black rectangle in the upper left quadrant, measuring approximately 1 by 1cm., and a corresponding patch of canvas on the reverse. There is some very slight undulation to the canvas in the lower left quadrant, but otherwise it is in sound condition. There is a light pattern of craquelure in a few localised areas of the work, most evident in the dark tones. There are a few slightly raised diagonal lines to the upper half of the work, with some resultant craquelure. There is some flattening to some of the raised areas of impasto and a spot of loss to the lower centre. There is some light surface dirt and studio detritus throughout. Subject to the above, the work appears to be in overall good condition. Inspection under ultraviolet light reveals a number of areas of florescence and probable retouching to the work. These have been sensitively executed. The work is presented in a canvas slip within a stained wooden frame. Please telephone the department on +(44) 0207 293 6424 if you have any further questions regarding the present lot.
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We are grateful to Anthony Hepworth and Gerard Hastings for their kind assistance with the cataloguing of the present work.

‘All space in painting is an illusion, whether it comes forward or goes back. What is real is the flat surface of the picture and the important thing is what has been painted there.’

Keith Vaughan, 1961

Figures and landscapes were Vaughan’s central concerns and he explored these twin themes, one way or another, for four decades. His not inconsiderable achievement was to combine the two elements into a harmonious union whereby landscape never merely supports or contextualizes the figure, and the human form never dominates its setting; each is inextricably related to and dependent on the other. This is certainly the case in The Forest. We could be forgiven for interpreting the figure as a quasi-self-portrait. Always regarding himself as an outsider, divorced from the rest of life going on around him, Vaughan’s sense of personal isolation and dislocation from society has, perhaps, translated itself into this painting.

Reaching out for security to the edge of the canvas, a male figure approaches a dark woodland setting. We are reminded, of course, of Adam after the Fall, setting out into a intimidating world, of Robert Frost’s poem The Road Not Taken and even of the dark forests of Dante’s Divine Comedy. Vaughan’s subject here is the human condition and he explores it head on. Naked, alone and vulnerable the young man sets off into a hostile terrain. The bough of a tree temporarily shades and protects him but he remains alone and defenseless as he walks into the shadows of the forest. In this context, The Forest is an essentially Romantic work.

At this time Vaughan was employing a muted and carefully considered palette of blacks and greys, tempered by ochres and burnt umbers to create ominous atmospheres (see also Charred Trees, 1953, Fruit Fearing Trees 1952-3 and Garden, 1953). This is not a visualization of fresh springtime or a re-enactment of the sunlit security of a golden summer, but an autumnal, poetic exploration of man’s innate insecurity.

Gerard Hastings, author of Awkward Artefacts: The Erotic Fantasies of Keith Vaughan published by Pagham Press in association with the Keith Vaughan Society.