Drawing to a Close: The Final Journals of Keith Vaughan by Gerard Hastings; Keith Vaughan: The Mature Oils 1946–1977 – A Commentary and a Catalogue Raisonné by Anthony Hepworth and Ian Massey; Keith Vaughan by Philip Vann & Gerard Hastings - review by Richard Canning

Richard Canning

Passing On

Drawing to a Close: The Final Journals of Keith Vaughan

By

Sansom and Company 208pp £40

Keith Vaughan: The Mature Oils 1946–1977 – A Commentary and a Catalogue Raisonné

By

Lund Humphries 184pp £40

Keith Vaughan

By

Lund Humphries 184pp £40
 

The reputation of the artist Keith Vaughan, who would have celebrated his hundredth birthday last year, may have dramatically declined since his suicide in 1977. However, his centenary saw conspicuous rehabilitation, with a major retrospective at the Pallant House Gallery in Chichester, which was followed by two London shows and the publication of these three excellent, complementary volumes. 

Entirely self-taught, Vaughan came to his calling by way of a stint as an advertisement layout artist. If his methodical placing of human forms owed something to the skills he had honed in his job, it also – ironically – anticipated the compositional focus of the very movement, abstraction, which

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