Biography

Painter, Keith Vaughan was born in 1912, at Selsey Bill in Sussex, and attended Christ’s Hospital, where he was badly bullied. He received no formal instruction in art, but was apprenticed at the Lintas advertising agency, which gave him some understanding of form and composition. During this period he painted small artworks, leaving Lintas in 1939 to paint full time, a career that was interrupted by the outbreak of the Second World War. Vaughan registered as a Conscientious Objector, eventually ending up as an assistant and interpreter at a German POW camp. During this period he came into contact with other artists such as Graham Sutherland and John Minton, which markedly affected his work.

His first solo show of his drawings was at Lefevre Gallery in 1942 followed by another of oil paintings in 1946, after which he had established himself as a successful artist in Britain and abroad. He taught at various art schools between 1946 and 1954 and travelled extensively. He was diagnosed with depression in 1958, an illness that was to dog the rest of his life.

Vaughan's artistic theme was constant: the male nude in the landscape. The Tate Gallery and many other public galleries hold his work. A retrospective was held at Whitechapel Art Gallery in 1962. After his death a memorial exhibition was held at Mapping Art Gallery, Sheffield with a major loan show at The Spring Fair, Olympia, in 2002.

Vaughan's journals, which have been published, give a graphic insight into his often vulnerable, obsessive and difficult private life - suffering from self-doubt combines with alcohol and drug abuse.