Exactly 100 years ago, the four Scottish Colourists had a very successful London show. It was only their second group appearance. Yet, ever since they are routinely seen together, they have been divorced from their European, Welsh, Irish, and English peers. This breakthrough exhibition has the courage, some may say audacity, to place the quartet in the context of their Post Impressionist, Fauvist and Bloomsbury Group contemporaries like Matisse, Derain, Vlamink, Duncan Grant, Roger Fry and Vanessa Bell.
Peploe 1871-1935, JD Fergusson 1874-1961, Hunter 1877-1931 and Cadell (1883-1937) – are popular artists, not just because of their attractive, often elegant, subject matter but above all because of their brave, intoxicating use of complementary colour. Paris was the key, where they learned from the Fauves. Then, in 1913, Peploe and Fergusson visited the Mediterranean. Smitten by the brilliant light, both quickly understood Matisse’s memorable words: “Colours became sticks of dynamite primed to discharge light.”
‘Radical Perspective’ is an impressive major show, with 85 pictures filling Dovecot’s ground floor. Beautifully displayed chronologically, it contains pictures from all over the UK, including the Tate’s famous Derain, ‘Pool of London’ 1906.
This splendid centenary celebration at Edinburgh’s Dovecot Studios is made possible by key loans from the famous Fleming Collection’s superb array of pictures amassed since 1968 by Fleming Bank, which began buying Scottish art for its offices worldwide to reflect its Dundonian roots. David Donald, Robert Fleming, Bill Smith and Selina Skipwith did a great job which the Foundation continues. Interestingly, the Colourists hit their stride in France in 1912, the same year the Dovecot studios were founded.
The story begins in 1900 when Peploe and Fergusson met. Both came from Edinburgh and trained in Paris but did not meet until they were already in their mid-twenties. From then on, they spent every summer in France, sharing enthusiasm for Monet, Whistler, and Sergeant, absorbing the dynamic spirit of the times and the revolutionary progress of the Modern Movement.
The show’s central section ‘Post-Impressionism and Paris’ includes Fergusson’s iconic “Blue Hat, Closerie de Lilas”, 1909 which captures the intoxicating atmosphere of Parisien society in the cafe which was the haunt for their bohemian friends, who included EA Taylor and Jessie M King. This period contains many favourite French and Scottish landscapes.
London’s Fitzroy Street and Bloomsbury Group follow, then the most avant-garde UK painters of the time. The 1910 London exhibition Manet and the Post-Impressionists’ work by Gauguin, Van Gogh and Cézanne caused a stir, converting Fitzroy members like Lucien Pissarro, Spencer Gore and Roger Fry into English Fauves.
By 1912, Fergusson had founded the Rhythm Group, an Anglo-American band of artists inspired by the Fauve movement. Four women, Anne Estelle Rice, Jessica Dismorr, Georges Banks and Ethel Wright, were included and also appeared in this show. One critic wrote, “The latest work of English and Scottish Post-Impressionists, headed by Mr Peploe and Mr Fergusson, apply the new principles as passionately and fearlessly as their French fellow workers.”
World War 1 put paid to painting the idyllic French coast and harbours or Cadell’s trips to Venice – which Cadell soon replaced with his beloved Iona. At the outbreak of war, Fergusson and his partner, the dancer Margaret Morris, moved to London, where they hosted a salon in Fergusson’s Chelsea Studio to which Mackintosh, Epstein, Ezra Pound, Siegfried Sassoon and Wyndham Lewis were regular visitors. By then, Fergusson was considered at the forefront of modern British painting. His wartime output included powerful images of destroyers and submarines at Portsmouth, which contained Vorticist influence.
Duncan Grant is one standout figure with his decorative Cubist designs and still lifes, along with the inclusion of 6 women, some like Jessica Dismorr, unknown to most.
FCB Cadell, The Feathered Hat, c.1914, oil on millboard. Image courtesy of the Fleming Collection
The exhibition ends in the 1920s with memorable landscapes of Perth and Galloway. Sadly, after the key 1925 Leicester Gallery success, the last few years were fraught. Cadell died destitute. Hunter suffered a physical and mental decline. Peploe died in 1935. Yet J D Fergusson lived a long, productive life in Glasgow with Margaret Morris, who is well represented here, one of the 6 women included by curator James Knox. Margaret remained a creative force into her 80s when I met her in their Glasgow studio. She was feisty. Memorable!
Top Photo: SJ Peploe, Luxembourg Gardens, c.1910, detail oil on panel Image courtesy of the Fleming Collection All photos courtesy Dovecot
The Scottish Colourists: Radical Perspectives 7 FEBRUARY 2025 to 28 JUNE 2025 Dovecot, Edinburgh