Keith Vaughan 1912-1977
Porthmeor, 1961
oil on canvas
17 by 15¾ inches
signed and dated

Provenance
Redfern Gallery, London
Private Collection, UK



In 1953, Vaughan saw an exhibition of Nicholas de Staël's work at Matthiesens and was impressed with de Staël's masterful application of paint and how his abstract work could still communicate about reality. Vaughan would have also seen the ICA’s show of Pollock’s work in 1953 and the Tate Gallery’s 1956 exhibition, ‘Modern Art in the United States’.

He was, however, reluctant to fully embrace this type of work and wrote on 4 January 1954, ‘Abstraction seems the way out for most other painters. But I cannot regard it as a solution. The language of ‘pure' form is too subjective. I refuse to embark on anything as soon as the outcome can be foreseen; as soon as I know it lies within my grasp. Yet almost everything I do looks as though it has been done precisely because I know how' (see Journal & drawings 1939-1965, London, 1966, p. 138).

Vaughan never saw himself as a completely abstract painter, commenting, ‘for me painting which has not got a representational element in it hardly goes beyond the point of design' (see N. Barber, Conversations with Painters, London, 1954, p. 80).