Paradise Found & Lost: Keith Vaughan in Essex

For almost twenty years the visionary British artist Keith Vaughan produced paintings inspired by the landscape of Essex. In 1964 he purchased a neglected piece of land with a row of derelict cottages near the village of Topplesfield, and set about transforming it into a private paradise. Over the course of a decade, glittering figures from the world of art and literature came to visit, including John Gielgud, Peggy Ashcroft, David Hockney, Patrick Procktor, Peter Shaffer and Derek Jarman. While bravely struggling with a series of incapacitating illnesses and depression, Vaughan continued to create complex, beautiful and highly original paintings of his beloved Essex.

This volume includes almost 200 illustrations of Vaughan;s paintings and photographs, many of which are seen here for the first time. The text outlines the artist’s life in the countryside and explores how his garden and the surrounding landscape became the inspiration for much of his mature work. Extracts from Vaughan’s private journals are published for the first time and accompany a critical analysis of his later landscape and figure paintings.

Condition: Peeling to the plastic covering at the lower right corner of the front cover