The inspections

This drawing records one of the more intimate and humiliating aspects of internment witnessed by Vaughan during his employment at a prisoner of war camp in Yorkshire, United Kingdom. It shows a British officer and Sergeant inspecting newly arrived German prisoners of war for venereal disease. 'The inspections' shows a row of four German soldiers seen from behind, in the darkened interior of a tent, each one shuffling forward with trousers held loosely at the waist as they prepare to expose themselves for inspection. The caricature-like figures of two British medical inspectors are leaning forward at left as they scrutinise a naked prisoner in a star pose at the front of the line. The naked male was the dominant theme in Vaughan's work throughout his career, and was often drawn in relation to his landscapes, space or environment.