Keith Vaughan (1912-1977)

Painter, draughtsman, and teacher, born at Selsey Bill, Sussex. Although Vaughan did not have formal art training he gained a good grounding in Italian Renaissance Art while at Christ's Hospital. Thereafter, between 1931 and 1939, he worked in the Lintas advertising agency, then owned by Unilever, painting in his spare time. When World War II broke out he was at first a conscientious objector, but he served in the Pioneer Corps from 1941 to 1946, using his fluent German as a prisoner-of-war interpreter in Yorkshire. This was the period when he came into contact with the Neo-Romantic painters, such as Graham Sutherland, Michael Ayrton and John Minton, who markedly affected his work. His first one-man show of drawings was held at Lefevre Gallery in 1942, followed by another of oil paintings in 1946. From then on he established himself as a successful artist in Britain and abroad. He painted the Theseus mural decoration in the Festival of