Keith Vaughan, (British, 1912-1977)

Reclining Figure, Two Sketches

Reclining Figure, Two Sketches
pencil on paper
25.5 x 19.5cm (10 1/16 x 7 11/16in).
Executed in 1950

Provenance
London, The Redfern Gallery, where acquired by the previous owner, and thence by descent to the present owner
Private Collection, U.K.

Exhibited
London, The Redfern Gallery, 1998, no. 7

These two drawings, made from life at the Central School of Art where he was teaching, relate to several important paintings on which Vaughan was currently working. He had been commissioned by the Arts Council to produce an enormous work called Theseus and the Minotaur in 1950 and these two pencil studies are related to the central, reclining figure of the Minotaur. The subject of the drawings – a male figure sprawling on a bed or couch – also loosely relates to the oil painting Reclining Nude, 1950. The upraised, tilted head clearly appears in Bather Seated painted in the same year.

We are grateful to Gerard Hastings, whose forthcoming book on Keith Vaughan's graphic work will be published by Pagham Press, for compiling this catalogue note.