In 1949 Vaughan visited Brittany cycling around Finistère staying in small villages and hamlets, and making drawings as he went. What he found there came as a surprise. Instead of a sun-drenched landscape and colourful inhabitants, he discovered a harsh, dour but, nevertheless, dramatic landscape. It had a significant effect on his painting. He wrote in his journal:

Returned from France with little regret. Enjoyed much but without the whole of me. Saw France for what it was – a setting, without the allure of its imagined romantic possibilities. Was faintly repelled by the noise, stridency, smells which hitherto had been veiled by romanticism. (Journals, September 24, 1949)

On his return, he produced a series of paintings, including Poulgoazec, depicting the stone cottages, local villages, harbours, fishermen and lobster catchers. His palette is muted to reflect the largely monochromatic, coastal villages he had visited. Careful note has been taken of the vernacular architecture of Brittany including the whitewashed walls, grey slate roofs, dressed stone, and modest fenestration. He even adds a decorative ‘ogee-arch’ door at the right of the composition – a local architectural feature.

The formal arrangement of the composition comprises geometric shapes of rooftops, tilted chimneys and windows, sprung arcs upturned fishing boats and architectural arches. At the bottom left, three fishermen huddled in conversation, represent the insular Celtic community he discovered.

Julius Fleischmann
Mr & Mrs Nick Lott
Anthony Hepworth Fine Art, Bath
Private collection, U.K.

Whitechapel Gallery, Keith Vaughan: Retrospective, exhibition catalogue, London, 1962, pl. xxvii (ill. – not exhibited)

A. Hepworth and I. Massey, Keith Vaughan: The Mature Oils 1946-1977, Sansom & Co., Bristol, 2012, p. 86, cat. no. 163 (ill. b&w)

London, Leicester Galleries, Keith Vaughan: Paintings, 1953, cat. no. 7

London, Olympia Fine Art and Antiques Fair, Keith Vaughan: Paintings and Drawings, 2002, no. 431

Bath, Victoria Art Gallery, Keith Vaughan: Figure and Landscape, 2007 cat. no. 17