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Keith Vaughan: The Mature Oils 1946-1977

Authorised by the artist’s estate, the publication is a major catalogue of Vaughan’s paintings. The book is co-authored; my contribution is the main essay, and forms a continuation of the project I began in my work on Patrick Procktor. The research explores the important yet marginalised body of paintings by Keith Vaughan (1912–77), examining the work’s stylistic and technical development over three decades, within a context of developments in European and American figurative and abstract painting. A key consideration is the way in which as a gay artist Vaughan depicted the male nude, drawing on both Classical and Modernist traditions, in what amounts to a series of painted memorials to his feelings for other men. The research focuses on the encodification of the artist’s sexuality, personal experience and autobiographical meaning in his work, making explicit the link between Vaughan’s sexual and artistic means of expression. In identifying recurrent themes, it provides a new reading/understanding of the work. My analysis is fundamentally based on previously unpublished archival material, including correspondence and journal entries, drawing on substantial holdings in the Tate Archive, including Vaughan’s journals (1938-1977), personal correspondence, painting records, and exhibition catalogues. Two private collectors granted access to documentation: Vaughan’s notes on technical process, correspondence, and photographs. Access was acquired to privately owned paintings, including major holdings from the estate of Vaughan’s most renowned collector, John Ball. The book has been reviewed in The Times Literary Supplement, The Spectator, The Literary Review, Apollo, The Art Newspaper and The Burlington Magazine. I have given public lectures on Vaughan at the Olympia Art Fair, London; Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester, and Abbot Hall, Kendal in August 2013.