John Duncan Fergusson RBA

(British, 1874-1961)

Still Life 40.5 x 36.5 cm. (15 3/4 x 14 3/8 in.)

Footnotes

Provenance
Sale; Sotheby's Gleneagles, 1975, lot 348
Private Collection, Scotland

Exhibited
Ayr, Maclaurin Gallery, Rozelle House, 1977, no.17

Painted in Paris circa 1910.

JD Fergusson visited Paris a number of times in the later 1890s, before taking the lease on a studio for the whole of 1907. His personal 'manifesto' had been made clear in the introduction to his 1905 exhibition catalogue at the Baillie Gallery in London, and showed him 'starting to engage intellectually with the expressive rawness of Fauvism' (E Cumming, The Scottish Colourists, National Galleries of Scotland, 2000, p.42) two years prior to his move to Paris.

Fergusson revelled in the bohemian café and studio milieu, after the stultifying atmosphere of Edinburgh, engaging in cultural and intellectual debate with great gusto. He exhibited annually at the Salon d'Automne 1907-1912 (being made a Sociétaire in 1909) and lived in a large white studio in Montparnasse in conditions of almost scientific cleanliness, receiving visitors such as Jacob Epstein.

JD Fergusson was arguably the most progressive British artist during the period 1905-1911, absorbing first-hand the work of the Fauves and other key avant garde artists and developing an original and dynamic oeuvre. Unlike the other Scottish Colourists, Fergusson painted relatively few still lives and the present picture is among the most modern and dynamic that he painted.