Two Figures

With its subject matter of nude male bathers, its exploration of the potential for abstraction found in groups of figures, and its muted colour palette comprising dark sea-greens and earthy tones, Two Figures is a quintessential Vaughan work. It also showcases Vaughan’s mature approach to oil painting, and his inventiveness in the variety of ways paint is applied to the surface. The landscape in which the figures are placed is minimally described and ambiguous, but the darkness of the palette and the moon appearing in the upper right corner suggests a nocturnal encounter. There is an erotic charge to the composition created by the proximity of the figures and their downwards gaze (as if they are examining each other’s bodies).

Compounding this is a direct physical tension, with the left figure in particular in an awkward contraposto, his left leg raised, his head bowed on his shoulders and his right arm tucked behind the back. The effect is of bodies captured in mid-motion and suggests that the composition may have been painted from a photographic reference, probably one of the many photographs of male bathers Vaughan took and drew inspiration from throughout his career. Vaughan’s originality in approaching the source material is apparent in the balance between figuration and abstraction and the subtle interplay between multiple layers of translucent paint. The outlines are more varied and overall less pronounced than in many of Vaughan’s other works on the same theme, sometimes decisively picking out the forms of the bathers, but more often receding behind the forms they describe. Decisive black lines interrupting the form of the left figure’s torso, as well as the brighter red and blue areas on the bathers' heads draw the eye and highlight the artist’s versatile approach to mark making.

We are very grateful to Gerard Hastings for preparing this catalogue entry, whose new book on Keith Vaughan’s graphic art is to be published soon by Pagham Press in Association with the Keith Vaughan Society.