Hardback. Constable and Company Ltd 1990-10-22.
ISBN: 0094697809 / 0-09-469780-9
EAN: 9780094697805
Bacon may have stolen the limelight... (Rating 4 of 5)
»
Mention art, homosexuality and the male form in the mid-twentieth century and the tortured canvases of Bacon may spring to mind. Keith Vaughan devoted almost his whole artistic career to depicting naked men, but his name has been eclipsed by his contemporary, Bacon and the younger Hockney. This is a shame, as Keith Vaughan was just as talented, but has never been afforded the attention he deserves. Yorke leans heavily on Vaughan's private diaries, to chart his progress from talented public school boy artist, to commerical designer to one of the most prolific of modern artists, who exhibited regularly from the 1950s to his untimely death from an overdose in 1977. Starting out as heavily derivative 'neo-romantic' landscape and abstract artist in the mould of Piper and Sutherland, Vaughan went on to explore his passion for the male body in private, romantic drawings and more restrained 'assemblies' of naked male figures. Yorke dutifully relates the details of Vaughan's private and public life, but there is not a great deal of analysis. We learn how Vaughan photographed a party of naked lads on the beach just before WW2, a conflict which would claim his brother and see him jailed for the crime of... sketching some road works. We learn quite a bit about Vaughan's frustrated private life and the more delicate reader may blush at the details of his strange experiments in self-pleasure! Perhaps the most rewarding aspect of the book is the excellent range of reproductions of Vaughan's works. For more inspiration, I would recommend reading the published versions of Vaughan's diaries. For the lover of 20th century British art and especially the male nude, this book will prove absorbing enough, but one feels that Yorke failed to get beneath the skin of a talented, but tortured great artist. Vaughan is an artist in need of a good biography, but this mediocre book does not fully do him justice.
Bacon may have stolen the limelight... (Rating 4 of 5)
»
Mention art, homosexuality and the male form in the mid-twentieth century and the tortured canvases of Bacon may spring to mind. Keith Vaughan devoted almost his whole artistic career to depicting naked men, but his name has been eclipsed by his contemporary, Bacon and the younger Hockney. This is a shame, as Keith Vaughan was just as talented, but has never been afforded the attention he deserves. Yorke leans heavily on Vaughan's private diaries, to chart his progress from talented public school boy artist, to commerical designer to one of the most prolific of modern artists, who exhibited regularly from the 1950s to his untimely death from an overdose in 1977. Starting out as heavily derivative 'neo-romantic' landscape and abstract artist in the mould of Piper and Sutherland, Vaughan went on to explore his passion for the male body in private, romantic drawings and more restrained 'assemblies' of naked male figures. Yorke dutifully relates the details of Vaughan's private and public life, but there is not a great deal of analysis. We learn how Vaughan photographed a party of naked lads on the beach just before WW2, but unfortunately, this book does not contain any of these beautiful studies, which would go on to inspire the artist's later paintings of naked men standing near water. The book relates how Vaughan was affected by the absence of his father, who left his mother to bring him up alone in a relationship that proved close, but stifling. The War would claim his brother and see him jailed for the crime of... sketching some road works. We learn quite a bit about Vaughan's frustrated private life and his uneasy relationships with various young men. Be warned, the more delicate reader may blush at the details of his strange experiments in self-pleasure! Perhaps the most rewarding aspect of the book is the excellent range of reproductions of Vaughan's works. For more inspiration, I would recommend reading the published versions of Vaughan's diaries. For the lover of 20th century British art and especially the male nude, this book will prove absorbing enough, but one feels that Yorke failed to get beneath the skin of a talented, but tortured great artist. Vaughan is an artist in need of a good biography, but this mediocre book does not fully do him justice.
(Rating 4 of 5)
