Ladder Back Chair Series

Born in Selsey, Sussex, Vaughan attended Christ’s Hospital School. Before the war he worked in an advertising agency, painting in his spare time. At the start of war, as a conscientious objector, he was conscripted into the Pioneer Corps, his fluent German enabling him to be a prisoner-of-war interpreter in Yorkshire. A self-taught artist, his first exhibitions were held during the war and became a friend of Graham Sutherland and John Minton with whom he later shared a studio. His first one-man show was held at the Lefevre Gallery in 1942. In the immediate post-war period he was part of a Neo-Romantic circle but soon developed his own idiosyncratic and semi abstract style. In 1951 he designed and painted the Theseus mural decoration in the Festival of Britain’s Dome of Discovery. He taught at Camberwell College of Art, the Central School of Art and later at the Slade. A Retrospective exhibition was held at the Whitechapel Art Gallery and 1962 and after his death a Memorial Exhibition was held at the Mappin Art Gallery, Sheffield. Works by him are held in many public collections including the Tate Gallery.