Beschreibung:

Keith Vaughan (British, 1912-1977)Standing Figure
signed, titled and dated twice 'STANDING FIGURE/1970/72/Keith Vaughan' (verso)
oil on canvas
122 x 102 cm. (48 x 40 1/8 in.)FootnotesProvenance
Gordon Hargreaves and John Ball
Sebastian Walker
His sale; Sotheby's, London, 20 November 1991, lot 57, where acquired by the present owner
Private Collection, U.K.
Exhibited
London, The Waddington Galleries, Keith Vaughan: New Paintings, 7 February-3 March 1973, exhibition not numbered
Literature
Anthony Hepworth and Ian Massey, Keith Vaughan: The Mature Oils 1946-1977, Sansom & Company, Bristol, 2012, p.182, cat.no.AH 547 (as Figure Standing)
Philip Vann and Gerard Hastings, Keith Vaughan, Lund Humphries in association with Osborne Samuel, Farnham, 2012, p.26, cat.no.20 (col.ill.)
The importance of Vaughan's art rests on his propensity to lay bare the challenges he experienced as both a painter and a gay man living in mid-20th century in England. At their most triumphant, his paintings resolve a complex, compositional dialogue between his preferred subject of the male nude and the prevailing abstract artistic trends of his time. His explorations of the male nude subject address the nature of desire and despair and celebrate, as he claimed, what it is like to inhabit a male body. Standing Figure is a key example of these ideas. Executed on a large scale, the naked male is placed at the centre of the composition. His limbs reach up and out of the pictorial space in an expressive gesture, while his torso is divided by a dark shadow running vertically from his bowed head to his groin. It is a deceptively simple, powerful, and enigmatic conception of the male nude.
Little clue is provided as to context or narrative, however the figural pose and attitude relate to Vaughan's interest in St. Sebastian and Laocoön subjects. Indeed, his studio notebooks reveal that Standing Figure was originally entitled Laocoön Figure Standing. In 1964 he produced a large series of paraphrases on the Laocoön theme, many representing small figural groups wrestling with the mythical sea serpent. A larger example, Laocoön Figure, also represents a single figure with arms held aloft in an act of attack or defence. Mythology, a favoured source of subject matter for Vaughan, not only provided a permissive context for the male form but assisted him in addressing a profound interest concerning the human experience. He wrote: 'The idea behind the Laocöon myth, at any rate to me, is that it represents in supremely dramatic form man's conflict with his environment and with himself, his own body.' (Keith Vaughan, Journals, August 1964)
While Standing Figure may have been conceived as a continuation of this theme, Vaughan reworked the composition over the course of 1970-72, simplifying and condensing the design into a meditation on the isolated male figure. His journals, which make for compulsive reading, provide enlightening context to his artistic expression. The year the present work was completed, he wrote:
'Best day's painting I've had for over a year. Probably the results are no better than at other times. But I've felt that wonderful elation of being involved. Of struggling with a problem I understand and which I know is soluble. It is not necessary to succeed in solving it to enjoy the struggle. The inner drive once more. The welling up of creative urge. The desire to make something again.' (Keith Vaughan, Journals, March 22, 1972).
Standing Figure enjoys noteworthy provenance, having first been owned by Vaughan's most important patrons Dr Gordon Hargreaves and Professor John Ball. It subsequently entered the collection of Sebastian Walker, the publisher of children's books, who amassed an important collection of modern British art, including forty-seven works by Vaughan. These were sold at auction in 1991 with the present work gracing the catalogue cover.
We are grateful to Gerard Hastings for his assistance in cataloguing this lot.