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Lot Essay
The present work, a particularly colourful gouache, has its origins in Vaughan’s love of Samuel Palmer’s ripened and luxuriant foliage. The twin subjects of male nude and landscape, which run throughout his work, are presented here in an exuberant combination. The term ‘gouache’ is generic since a combination of Indian ink, pen work and wax crayon have been combined with gouache. Vaughan made this work at a time of high optimism and new-found confidence; since leaving the army he had established a respectable reputation, exhibited his work both at home and abroad and secured several teaching posts. This resulting sanguinity can be detected in Figure and Flowering Branch.
'A growing awareness of the painted surface developed in the gouaches of the 1950s; this quality began to reveal itself as Vaughan started to explore the more eloquent possibilities of the medium and extend its means of application. As the blackout curtains of the war years were drawn open, so his palette also brightened … Tension developed between the importance of Vaughan’s subject matter and the value of his paint as an expressive medium in its own right. This was to become one of his central preoccupations as a painter … Perhaps the most curious effect in Vaughan’s gouache vocabulary is the watery frothing that appears from the early 1950s onwards … The technique is not easy to achieve since bubbles created by rapid movement of the brush, rupture on drying and result in a flattened tone. He accidently discovered an innovative method to arrest the foamy gouache texture and prevent it from bursting before it dried. It seems he was careless one day while cleaning his brushes in the studio sink and traces of detergent remained on one of them. When he resumed work the next day his gouache paint began to froth as he agitated the wet brush over the surface of the paper. Since the viscosity of the paint had been strengthened by the presence of the detergent, the curious bubbling effect remained even after the gouache dried. As Vaughan refined the technique he discovered also ‘vinegar in the water makes the ink precipitate, [however it] stings the skin’ (Keith Vaughan, Journal, February 26, 1965). … His application of paint is never concealed; on the contrary his aesthetic invention and the motion of his hand while smearing the pigment onto the paper’s surface are carefully and intentionally preserved in the final statement; there is no suppression of technique. He was the foremost gouache painter of his generation and his work celebrates the very stuff of paint while rejoicing in the infinite and eloquent variety of marks that the medium is capable of making' (G. Hastings and P. Vann, Keith Vaughan, London, 2012).
We are very grateful to Gerard Hastings, author of Drawing to a Close: The Final Journals of Keith Vaughan (Pagham Press) and Keith Vaughan the Photographs (Pagham Press), for preparing this catalogue entry.
'A growing awareness of the painted surface developed in the gouaches of the 1950s; this quality began to reveal itself as Vaughan started to explore the more eloquent possibilities of the medium and extend its means of application. As the blackout curtains of the war years were drawn open, so his palette also brightened … Tension developed between the importance of Vaughan’s subject matter and the value of his paint as an expressive medium in its own right. This was to become one of his central preoccupations as a painter … Perhaps the most curious effect in Vaughan’s gouache vocabulary is the watery frothing that appears from the early 1950s onwards … The technique is not easy to achieve since bubbles created by rapid movement of the brush, rupture on drying and result in a flattened tone. He accidently discovered an innovative method to arrest the foamy gouache texture and prevent it from bursting before it dried. It seems he was careless one day while cleaning his brushes in the studio sink and traces of detergent remained on one of them. When he resumed work the next day his gouache paint began to froth as he agitated the wet brush over the surface of the paper. Since the viscosity of the paint had been strengthened by the presence of the detergent, the curious bubbling effect remained even after the gouache dried. As Vaughan refined the technique he discovered also ‘vinegar in the water makes the ink precipitate, [however it] stings the skin’ (Keith Vaughan, Journal, February 26, 1965). … His application of paint is never concealed; on the contrary his aesthetic invention and the motion of his hand while smearing the pigment onto the paper’s surface are carefully and intentionally preserved in the final statement; there is no suppression of technique. He was the foremost gouache painter of his generation and his work celebrates the very stuff of paint while rejoicing in the infinite and eloquent variety of marks that the medium is capable of making' (G. Hastings and P. Vann, Keith Vaughan, London, 2012).
We are very grateful to Gerard Hastings, author of Drawing to a Close: The Final Journals of Keith Vaughan (Pagham Press) and Keith Vaughan the Photographs (Pagham Press), for preparing this catalogue entry.