Despite the first acquisition of his work for a public collection, when a still life was purchased by the Scottish Modern Arts Association (SMAA) in 1907, and a successful second solo exhibition two years later, Peploe protested ‘it is terrible to be an artist in Edinburgh’.10 He married Margaret Mackay (fig.112) in 1910 and they moved to Paris shortly afterwards, where, Peploe explained, ‘Art – painting – is considered something’.11 First, the couple joined Fergusson and his partner, the artist Anne Estelle Rice, in Royan. The Peploes’ son William was born on a day when Peploe was painting its harbour. He described the brilliant colour and explicit brushstrokes of works such as Boats at Royan (fig.6) as a ‘tremendous advance’
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and developed this approach in images of Paris including Luxembourg Gardens (fig.7).12 They signalled a two-year submersion into the latest developments in French art, including the controversial ‘Fauves’ (wild beasts) artists such as André Derain and Henri Matisse. Through Fergusson, who had lived in Paris since 1907 and introduced him to Pablo Picasso, Peploe was able to ‘explore new dreamlands’ and his work ‘changed from blacks and greys to colour and design’.13 He joined Fergusson and Rice in the progressive Anglo-American Rhythm group, contributed to eight issues of its journal, showed with them in London in 1912 and at the anti-establishment Salon d’Automne (SdA) and admitted that he had ‘a very lively time’.14
Fig.6 Samuel John Peploe 1871–1935
Fig.7 Samuel John Peploe 1871–1935
Boats at Royan, 1910, oil on board, 27 × 35 cm. National Galleries of Scotland. Bequeathed by Dr R.A. Lillie 1977
Luxembourg Gardens, c.1910, oil on panel, 35.5 × 28 cm. The Fleming Collection. Purchased 1984
Samuel John Peploe
15
Despite the first acquisition of his work for a public collection, when a still life was purchased by the Scottish Modern Arts Association (SMAA) in 1907, and a successful second solo exhibition two years later, Peploe protested ‘it is terrible to be an artist in Edinburgh’.10 He married Margaret Mackay (fig.112) in 1910 and they moved to Paris shortly afterwards, where, Peploe explained, ‘Art – painting – is considered something’.11 First, the couple joined Fergusson and his partner, the artist Anne Estelle Rice, in Royan. The Peploes’ son William was born on a day when Peploe was painting its harbour. He described the brilliant colour and explicit brushstrokes of works such as Boats at Royan (fig.6) as a ‘tremendous advance’
14
The Scottish Colourists: Art & Life
and developed this approach in images of Paris including Luxembourg Gardens (fig.7).12 They signalled a two-year submersion into the latest developments in French art, including the controversial ‘Fauves’ (wild beasts) artists such as André Derain and Henri Matisse. Through Fergusson, who had lived in Paris since 1907 and introduced him to Pablo Picasso, Peploe was able to ‘explore new dreamlands’ and his work ‘changed from blacks and greys to colour and design’.13 He joined Fergusson and Rice in the progressive Anglo-American Rhythm group, contributed to eight issues of its journal, showed with them in London in 1912 and at the anti-establishment Salon d’Automne (SdA) and admitted that he had ‘a very lively time’.14
Fig.6 Samuel John Peploe 1871–1935
Fig.7 Samuel John Peploe 1871–1935
Boats at Royan, 1910, oil on board, 27 × 35 cm. National Galleries of Scotland. Bequeathed by Dr R.A. Lillie 1977
Luxembourg Gardens, c.1910, oil on panel, 35.5 × 28 cm. The Fleming Collection. Purchased 1984
Samuel John Peploe
15
Fig.15 Samuel John Peploe 1871–1935 Still Life with Chinese Vase, c.1920, oil on canvas, 46 × 56 cm. Glasgow Life Museums. Bequeathed 2016 Fig.16 Samuel John Peploe 1871–1935 Roses and Still Life, early 1920s, oil on canvas, 65 × 50 cm. University of Dundee Museums. Purchased 1964
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‘Days or even weeks’ were spent arranging objects to create a precise point of balance and design.31 Dazzling colour combinations, complex compositions and indications of space beyond the canvas were realised in works like Still Life with Chinese Vase (fig.15) and especially in numerous images featuring roses (fig.16), which are Peploe’s most well-known paintings. The Statuette (fig.17) demonstrates how a calmness entered his practice as the decade progressed.
Fig.15 Samuel John Peploe 1871–1935 Still Life with Chinese Vase, c.1920, oil on canvas, 46 × 56 cm. Glasgow Life Museums. Bequeathed 2016 Fig.16 Samuel John Peploe 1871–1935 Roses and Still Life, early 1920s, oil on canvas, 65 × 50 cm. University of Dundee Museums. Purchased 1964
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The Scottish Colourists: Art & Life
‘Days or even weeks’ were spent arranging objects to create a precise point of balance and design.31 Dazzling colour combinations, complex compositions and indications of space beyond the canvas were realised in works like Still Life with Chinese Vase (fig.15) and especially in numerous images featuring roses (fig.16), which are Peploe’s most well-known paintings. The Statuette (fig.17) demonstrates how a calmness entered his practice as the decade progressed.
Fig.30 John Duncan Fergusson 1874–1961 La Terrasse, Café d’Harcourt, c.1908, oil on canvas, 108.6 × 122 cm. Private collection, on loan to the National Galleries of Scotland
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The Scottish Colourists: Art & Life
Fig.30 John Duncan Fergusson 1874–1961 La Terrasse, Café d’Harcourt, c.1908, oil on canvas, 108.6 × 122 cm. Private collection, on loan to the National Galleries of Scotland
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Fig.36 John Duncan Fergusson 1874–1961
Fig.37 John Duncan Fergusson 1874–1961
Eástre (Hymn to the Sun), 1924 (cast 1971), brass, 41.8 × 22 × 22.5 cm. National Galleries of Scotland. Purchased 1972
Plénitude d’Olivier, 1926, olive wood, 44.4 cm excluding base, 55.8 cm including base. Hugo Burge Foundation Collection, image courtesy of Lyon & Turnbull
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The Scottish Colourists: Art & Life
Fig.36 John Duncan Fergusson 1874–1961
Fig.37 John Duncan Fergusson 1874–1961
Eástre (Hymn to the Sun), 1924 (cast 1971), brass, 41.8 × 22 × 22.5 cm. National Galleries of Scotland. Purchased 1972
Plénitude d’Olivier, 1926, olive wood, 44.4 cm excluding base, 55.8 cm including base. Hugo Burge Foundation Collection, image courtesy of Lyon & Turnbull
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Fig.56 George Leslie Hunter 1877–1931 Doge’s Palace, Venice, c.1922, oil on panel, 12.7 × 20.3 cm. Glasgow Life Museums. Bequeathed by William McInnes 1944
Doge’s Palace, Venice (fig.56) and Les Environs de Florence (‘Near Florence’) (fig.57) reveal how Hunter’s experimentation continued abroad. He worked using small panels painted quickly on the spot as well as making more measured depictions of a countryside that he explained ‘reminds me very much of California […] I feel at home somehow among the olive trees and the orchards.’19 However, this level of activity came at the cost of what he described as a ‘nerve attack’ in Italy in 1923 and he retreated to Jeanie’s care.20
Fig.57 George Leslie Hunter 1877–1931 Les Environs de Florence, c.1923, oil on board, 46 × 41 cm. Private collection, image courtesy of Lyon & Turnbull
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George Leslie Hunter
77
Fig.56 George Leslie Hunter 1877–1931 Doge’s Palace, Venice, c.1922, oil on panel, 12.7 × 20.3 cm. Glasgow Life Museums. Bequeathed by William McInnes 1944
Doge’s Palace, Venice (fig.56) and Les Environs de Florence (‘Near Florence’) (fig.57) reveal how Hunter’s experimentation continued abroad. He worked using small panels painted quickly on the spot as well as making more measured depictions of a countryside that he explained ‘reminds me very much of California […] I feel at home somehow among the olive trees and the orchards.’19 However, this level of activity came at the cost of what he described as a ‘nerve attack’ in Italy in 1923 and he retreated to Jeanie’s care.20
Fig.57 George Leslie Hunter 1877–1931 Les Environs de Florence, c.1923, oil on board, 46 × 41 cm. Private collection, image courtesy of Lyon & Turnbull
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George Leslie Hunter
77
Francis Campbell Boileau Cadell was born in Edinburgh in 1883, making him the youngest of the Scottish Colourists. He can be described as the most ‘Scottish’ of the quartet. Despite training in Paris and Munich, his two loves were Edinburgh and the Hebridean island of Iona. They provided the inspiration for his most celebrated paintings of interiors, still lifes, figure studies and landscapes. The sculptor James Pittendrigh Macgillivray summed up Cadell’s artistry when he wrote to him, ‘It seems to me […] that your forte lies in a gift of colour and light […] seen in a joyous mood.’1 ‘Bunty’, as Cadell was known, showed artistic potential from an early age. His school report of 1893 lamented ‘a pencil in his hand at any time is dangerous to lessons’.2 Given the conservatism of the training available in Edinburgh, and on the suggestion of the artist Arthur Melville, Cadell moved to Paris in 1898 at the age of fifteen, with his mother and sister. He studied at the Académies Julian, Colarossi and Delécluse and attended evening classes taught by Alphonse Mucha in James Abbott McNeill Whistler’s studio.3 By the following year his confidence in using colour was such that, on seeing a sketch, a friend ‘ran up a ladder and screamed for blue spectacles’.4 His first exhibited work was a watercolour shown in the American Art Association exhibition in Paris of 1900.5 Cadell concluded his training with a brief attendance at the Royal Scottish Academy (RSA) Life School in 1901–02,
where Samuel John Peploe was a fellow student, and at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Munich in 1907.6 By 1909, Cadell had established himself in a studio at 130 George Street, in the heart of Edinburgh’s Georgian New Town (fig.73). His friendship with Peploe blossomed, based on their common ‘love of colour, sunshine and freedom of action’, and they both had solo exhibitions at The Scottish Gallery that year.7 A trip to Venice in 1910, funded by a cheque for £150 from his schoolfriend the politician Patrick Ford, prompted a breakthrough in Cadell’s practice that saw him emerge as an artist of distinction. The majestic beauty of the city, often reflected in and illuminated by its aqueous environs, freed Cadell’s technique and brightened his palette. This can be seen in Florian’s Café, Venice (fig.75) and Santa Maria della Salute (fig.76). The latter was one of six of the resultant Venetian works that Ford chose in return for his patronage.8 The outstanding natural beauty of Iona, which Cadell visited for the first time in 1912, provided inspiration and a source of income from the sales of the works he made there, until at least 1933. Paintings such as The North End, Iona (fig.74), reveal his ability to capture the gentle brilliance of Hebridean light and the ever-changing weather conditions experienced there. The first line of a poem Cadell began composing while on Iona in 1913, ‘Warmed by the sun, blown by the wind I sat’, could describe the moment of its creation.9
Page 94: detail from Francis Campbell Boileau Cadell, The Dunara Castle at Iona (fig.92) Fig.73 Unknown photographer Photograph of Cadell in his studio at 130 George Street, Edinburgh, showing The Black Hat, 1914 (fig.78) and Port Bhan, Iona, c.1913 on the easel beside him, c.1914. Private collection
Fig.74 Francis Campbell Boileau Cadell 1883–1937 The North End, Iona, c.1914, oil on canvas, 36 × 44 cm. Private collection
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Francis Campbell Boileau Cadell
97
Francis Campbell Boileau Cadell was born in Edinburgh in 1883, making him the youngest of the Scottish Colourists. He can be described as the most ‘Scottish’ of the quartet. Despite training in Paris and Munich, his two loves were Edinburgh and the Hebridean island of Iona. They provided the inspiration for his most celebrated paintings of interiors, still lifes, figure studies and landscapes. The sculptor James Pittendrigh Macgillivray summed up Cadell’s artistry when he wrote to him, ‘It seems to me […] that your forte lies in a gift of colour and light […] seen in a joyous mood.’1 ‘Bunty’, as Cadell was known, showed artistic potential from an early age. His school report of 1893 lamented ‘a pencil in his hand at any time is dangerous to lessons’.2 Given the conservatism of the training available in Edinburgh, and on the suggestion of the artist Arthur Melville, Cadell moved to Paris in 1898 at the age of fifteen, with his mother and sister. He studied at the Académies Julian, Colarossi and Delécluse and attended evening classes taught by Alphonse Mucha in James Abbott McNeill Whistler’s studio.3 By the following year his confidence in using colour was such that, on seeing a sketch, a friend ‘ran up a ladder and screamed for blue spectacles’.4 His first exhibited work was a watercolour shown in the American Art Association exhibition in Paris of 1900.5 Cadell concluded his training with a brief attendance at the Royal Scottish Academy (RSA) Life School in 1901–02,
where Samuel John Peploe was a fellow student, and at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Munich in 1907.6 By 1909, Cadell had established himself in a studio at 130 George Street, in the heart of Edinburgh’s Georgian New Town (fig.73). His friendship with Peploe blossomed, based on their common ‘love of colour, sunshine and freedom of action’, and they both had solo exhibitions at The Scottish Gallery that year.7 A trip to Venice in 1910, funded by a cheque for £150 from his schoolfriend the politician Patrick Ford, prompted a breakthrough in Cadell’s practice that saw him emerge as an artist of distinction. The majestic beauty of the city, often reflected in and illuminated by its aqueous environs, freed Cadell’s technique and brightened his palette. This can be seen in Florian’s Café, Venice (fig.75) and Santa Maria della Salute (fig.76). The latter was one of six of the resultant Venetian works that Ford chose in return for his patronage.8 The outstanding natural beauty of Iona, which Cadell visited for the first time in 1912, provided inspiration and a source of income from the sales of the works he made there, until at least 1933. Paintings such as The North End, Iona (fig.74), reveal his ability to capture the gentle brilliance of Hebridean light and the ever-changing weather conditions experienced there. The first line of a poem Cadell began composing while on Iona in 1913, ‘Warmed by the sun, blown by the wind I sat’, could describe the moment of its creation.9
Page 94: detail from Francis Campbell Boileau Cadell, The Dunara Castle at Iona (fig.92) Fig.73 Unknown photographer Photograph of Cadell in his studio at 130 George Street, Edinburgh, showing The Black Hat, 1914 (fig.78) and Port Bhan, Iona, c.1913 on the easel beside him, c.1914. Private collection
Fig.74 Francis Campbell Boileau Cadell 1883–1937 The North End, Iona, c.1914, oil on canvas, 36 × 44 cm. Private collection
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Francis Campbell Boileau Cadell
97
Fig.94 Francis Campbell Boileau Cadell 1883–1937
Fig.95 Francis Campbell Boileau Cadell 1883–1937
Cassis, le Port, c.1923, oil on panel, 44 × 36 cm. Private collection. Photograph courtesy of the Richard Green Gallery, London
Roses, late 1920s, oil on panel, 46 × 39 cm. Private collection, image courtesy of Christie’s
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Francis Campbell Boileau Cadell
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Fig.94 Francis Campbell Boileau Cadell 1883–1937
Fig.95 Francis Campbell Boileau Cadell 1883–1937
Cassis, le Port, c.1923, oil on panel, 44 × 36 cm. Private collection. Photograph courtesy of the Richard Green Gallery, London
Roses, late 1920s, oil on panel, 46 × 39 cm. Private collection, image courtesy of Christie’s
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Francis Campbell Boileau Cadell
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Fig.111 George Leslie Hunter 1877–1931 Still Life with Half-peeled Lemon, 1919, oil on canvas, 69 × 56 cm. The Hunterian Art Gallery and Museum, University of Glasgow. Donated by Professor Alec L. Macfie 1973
His solo exhibition went ahead as planned and the trio was completed by Cadell, whom Fergusson had dismissed alongside Bear and Dunlop. Four works in the exhibition Paintings by Four Scottish Colourists: S.J. Peploe, Leslie Hunter, F.C.B. Cadell, J.D. Fergusson, mounted by T. & R. Annan & Sons in Glasgow in 1948, were lent by Fergusson.14 It featured thirty works including Hunter’s Still Life with Half-peeled Lemon (fig.111). Tom Honeyman, since 1939 Director of Glasgow Art Galleries, wrote the catalogue introduction, explaining, ‘once upon a time when I knew and cared less, I did not “understand” what they were trying to say […] Now when I know and care more about the lovely things created by the minds and hands of artists, I still find delight in [… their] paintings.’ The exhibition marked a shift from focusing solely on the quartet’s shared nationality to referring to their common use of bright colour as well, a concept of the group which has developed ever since. Its membership was still not assured, however, and Fergusson was not included in the Royal Scottish Academy’s Festival Exhibition of the work of Peploe, Cadell and Hunter held in 1949. This was the first group show of the Colourists in a public as opposed to a private gallery and was the first time the three artists were shown together in their country of birth. Paintings featured included Hunter’s Doge’s Palace, Venice (fig.56) and Cadell’s Interior: The Orange Blind (fig.82). Fergusson played a minor role in Honeyman’s 1950 book Three Scottish Colourists and the exhibition of the collection it was based on, Pictures from a Private Collection, held at Glasgow’s McLellan Galleries the following year. However, he was re-instated in the Saltire Society’s exhibition Four Scottish Colourists of 1952, the first in the public sector devoted to the quartet. Fergusson was delighted to be involved, writing to the organiser, ‘in reply to your invitation to show with the Group of course I’ll be pleased, not being dead usually excludes me’.15
Connections and Perceptions
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Fig.111 George Leslie Hunter 1877–1931 Still Life with Half-peeled Lemon, 1919, oil on canvas, 69 × 56 cm. The Hunterian Art Gallery and Museum, University of Glasgow. Donated by Professor Alec L. Macfie 1973
His solo exhibition went ahead as planned and the trio was completed by Cadell, whom Fergusson had dismissed alongside Bear and Dunlop. Four works in the exhibition Paintings by Four Scottish Colourists: S.J. Peploe, Leslie Hunter, F.C.B. Cadell, J.D. Fergusson, mounted by T. & R. Annan & Sons in Glasgow in 1948, were lent by Fergusson.14 It featured thirty works including Hunter’s Still Life with Half-peeled Lemon (fig.111). Tom Honeyman, since 1939 Director of Glasgow Art Galleries, wrote the catalogue introduction, explaining, ‘once upon a time when I knew and cared less, I did not “understand” what they were trying to say […] Now when I know and care more about the lovely things created by the minds and hands of artists, I still find delight in [… their] paintings.’ The exhibition marked a shift from focusing solely on the quartet’s shared nationality to referring to their common use of bright colour as well, a concept of the group which has developed ever since. Its membership was still not assured, however, and Fergusson was not included in the Royal Scottish Academy’s Festival Exhibition of the work of Peploe, Cadell and Hunter held in 1949. This was the first group show of the Colourists in a public as opposed to a private gallery and was the first time the three artists were shown together in their country of birth. Paintings featured included Hunter’s Doge’s Palace, Venice (fig.56) and Cadell’s Interior: The Orange Blind (fig.82). Fergusson played a minor role in Honeyman’s 1950 book Three Scottish Colourists and the exhibition of the collection it was based on, Pictures from a Private Collection, held at Glasgow’s McLellan Galleries the following year. However, he was re-instated in the Saltire Society’s exhibition Four Scottish Colourists of 1952, the first in the public sector devoted to the quartet. Fergusson was delighted to be involved, writing to the organiser, ‘in reply to your invitation to show with the Group of course I’ll be pleased, not being dead usually excludes me’.15
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141