Description
Pen and ink on Paper
Studio stamp on reverse
13.8 x 22.5 cm
Framed in oak
Exhibited: Menier Gallery, London, 2014. No. 58
Literature: Gerard Hastings, Prunella Clough & Keith Vaughan: Visions and Recollections, Pagham Press, p. 90
Provenance: Artist’s estate, private collection
This drawing comes from a wartime sketchbook made at Codford Camp in 1942. While serving in the Non-Combatant Corps, one of Vaughan’s duties was to act as an interpreter for the prisoners of war, since he spoke fluent German. A medical inspection of a new group of interned prisoners is underway. The central figure has unceremoniously dropped his pants while his compatriots, in various states of undress, wait their turn to be seen by the army medical officer. At the left, one figure dresses himself and, in the distance, two army bell-tents can be glimpsed on the low horizon.