
Christopher Dawson
Head of Department
Sold for £14,080 inc. premium
Our Modern British & Irish Art specialists can help you find a similar item at an auction or via a private sale.
Find your local specialistHead of Department
Provenance
With Thos. Agnew & Sons, London
Sale; Sotheby's, London, 30 September 1998, lot 192, where acquired by the family of the present owner
Private Collection, U.K.
Only a handful of Vaughan's paintings survive from the 1930s, including portraits such as the present work. Several represent young men seated or standing (see Portrait Head, 1935; Portrait of Dick Vaughan, circa 1935 and Seated Figure in an Armchair, circa 1937). In each, the adolescent sitters gently turn their heads to the right and are conceived volumetrically with delicate light and shade. The absence of background details or distracting settings, compels us to focus attention on the sitters' features and facial expression.
The model for Portrait of a Boy could be one of a number of people that posed for Vaughan at that time including his brother, Harold Colebrook (his partner at the time) or various friends who were cajoled into posing for him. He conveys a melancholic mood as though quietly considering his place in the world while reflecting on something inexpressible, unspoken and deeply felt. His introspective demeanour equally echoes Vaughan's own insecurities towards the end of the 1930s. While working for Lintas Advertising Agency as a layout man, he was unable to pursue his ambition to become a full-time painter. His crippling shyness and perceived lack of talent, coupled with pressing project schedules, meant he had to endure a humdrum existence between the design studio and his mother's flat in Hampstead.
Trusted colleagues such as the Australian painter John Passmore, introduced Vaughan to the work of Picasso while he was at Lintas. The sensitive handling of the forms, pink colouring and thoughtful character of the boy, no doubt, owe a debt to Picasso's Rose Period paintings.
We are grateful to Gerard Hastings for compiling this catalogue entry.