PROPERTY FROM THE COLLECTION OF THE LATE PETER ADAM
KEITH VAUGHAN (BRITISH, 1912-1977)
Bending Figure
bronze with a dark brown patina
numbered and stamped with estate stamp '5/1 K.V.' (beneath base)
20 cm. (7 7/8 in.) high

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

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

Vaughan’s free-standing sculptures were never exhibited in his lifetime. They were originally fashioned in modelling clay, probably to work out formal problems associated with his painting. He made three figurines: a standing black youth, a male figure bending forward and a smaller, three-quarter length figure. He also made a relief medallion, or amulet, in wax and pierced it with a hole to be threaded and worn around the neck. They most likely date from around 1960 since, on June 1 that year, he wrote in his journal, with typical self-effacement, ‘Painting and attempts at jewellery making in wax today. Neither went well.’

In 1976, while Vaughan was in hospital undergoing an operation to remove a large kidney stone, Prunella Clough and Peter Adam arranged for two of his clay figures to be cast at a foundry. Their intention was to divert and amuse him, since he had fallen into a depression, having also undergone a colostomy operation. Adam recalled, ‘Years earlier, Keith had made small clay figures – a bending nude and a torso. As a surprise, Prunella had them cast in bronze and these figures, the only sculptures he had ever made, gave him much pleasure’ (Peter Adam A Short Anatomy of a Friendship from Gerard Hastings, Visions and Recollections: Prunella Clough and Keith Vaughan, Pagham Press, 2014).

According to Adam, Clough asked for five bronze casts to be made of Standing Figure and Bending Figure. During the process, unfortunately, both original clay models were destroyed. Clough was an executor of Vaughan’s estate and, when he died in 1977, took possession of the plaster mould of Standing Figure, the other having been broken and discarded. On her death, the mould came into Adam’s possession, and he made a further five, unnumbered casts. The smaller clay figure, deemed too fragile to be cast, was the only original model that survived. However, it also has had an unfortunate history. For many years it sat, much treasured, on top of an Eileen Gray table in Adam’s Parisian flat, until it was damaged by a workman mending his roof. After this, it was placed in a box and put away it for safe keeping.

The original clay surface of Bending Figure was fashioned with determination and the modelling is broad and confident. It is a hand-sized sculpture, conceived on an intimate scale as a free-standing form in-the-round. The dark, polished patina ensures a play of light on the forms, catches the edges of the anatomical parts and animates the surface values.

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