Figure: April 23

This work was included in a suite of fourteen pastels which Vaughan exhibited in his 1962 retrospective at the Whitechapel Gallery. The previous year he had produced a series of single figures in this recently discovered medium. Vaughan was instantly inspired by their rich density of colour and the immediacy with which pastels could be applied; they could be rubbed and blended together in a tactile and sensual manner. Furthermore they left no dusty residue nor did they smudge like traditional artists' chalks. Vaughan continued to use oil pastels for the next two decades. Since 'they were then rare in England', he explained to Prunella Clough that they were 'waterproof, impervious to everything, can be rolled, stamped on, eaten.' (see M. Yorke, Keith Vaughan his Life and Work, London 1990, p. 189).

Vaughan has combined coloured oil pastels with a range of translucent wax crayons, building up a patchwork of forms which encase a standing male figure. As always Vaughan's figure is anonymous and unidentified; this is not a particular man but mankind in general. The dominant key of blue is modulated through a series colour chords of cobalts, indigos and azures and this chromatic arrangement is off-set by more dominant blacks and earthy hues.

G.H.