Before summer ends - photographs by Keith Vaughan, circa 1938

I believe that the majority of these photographs were taken on Pagham Beach in West Sussex during the waning days of the Thirties - with war already on the horizon - most likely at the end of July or the beginning of August in 1938. 

Most if not all of these photographs were taken as reference material for the artist's painting practice, and were never meant for publication, so the printing and condition of some of these images is quite poor. Several also display what appear to be crop marks.

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Self-portrait, ND.

John Keith Vaughan (23 August 1912, Selsey, West Sussex - 4 November 1977, London), British painter. He endured a difficult childhood - his father abandoned the family - and he was a boarder at Christ’s Hospital, Horsham; the art master there provided his only formal art training. He worked for an advertising agency before the war, but left his job to become a full time artist in 1939. He also began keeping a journal that year, a practice he would continue for the rest of his life. A conscientious objector, he was conscripted into the Non-Combatant Corps two years later, but his first exhibitions took place during the war. During this time he formed friendships with the other painters, including Graham Sutherland and John Minton; later, from 1948-52, he shared a house with the latter. After the war he traveled widely, often completing large-scale murals as well as teaching. In 1962 he had a major retrospective exhibition in London. Four years later were published extracts from his private journals in which, a year before the decriminalization of homosexuality, his sexuality was expressed openly. He was diagnosed with cancer in 1975. For the next two years, though initially able to create work and teach part-time, he increasingly suffered overwhelming depression and a growing dependance on drugs and alcohol. In 1977, at the age of sixty-five, after counseling and assistance from a doctor, he decided to terminate his life. After taking an overdose of barbiturates, he recorded his last moments in his diary as the drugs took effect. The remainder of his journals were published in full in 1989.

"Idol," 1940.