PROPERTY FROM THE COLLECTION OF THE LATE PETER ADAM
KEITH VAUGHAN (BRITISH, 1912-1977)
Self-portrait
signed and dated 'Keith Vaughan March 17th/50' (lower right)
gouache, wash, pen & ink
31.6 x 24.2 cm. (12 1/2 x 9 1/2 in.)

Provenance
The artist, from whom acquired by
Peter Adam (1929-2019), thence by family descent

Exhibited
Olympia, London, The Spring Fair: Loan Exhibition of paintings and drawings Keith Vaughan 1912-1977, 26 Feb-3 March 2002, (ill.col. p.14)

We are grateful to Gerard Hastings and Anthony Hepworth for their assistance in cataloguing this lot.

Vaughan made a handful of self-portrait gouaches and drawings. In the present work he depicts himself as typically introspective, staring out intently at the viewer, while engaging in the act of drawing. Pen and ink lines are infilled with diluted Indian ink and, here and there, areas such as the face, collar and hand are picked out with white gouache. The direct stare of the artist is both self-revealing and disarming. From 1939 until the moment he died, Vaughan kept an intimate and personal journal, with the intention of revealing his true nature to an imagined, future reader. This self-portrait is, perhaps, an extension of that confessorial revelation of his inner personality.

We are grateful to Gerard Hastings for compiling this catalogue entry.

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