Art, Samuel Poploe

This is the guy whose exhibition I went to see at St Andrews on Friday. Normally still life is not my favourite subject matter, but his are truly amazing. He is what I would call a ‘painterly’ painter, more than anything else he is into ‘paint’. When you see his work in the flesh it’s alive, vibrant and above all, he loves paint. The actual medium is as important as any thing else. I think he is a paint worshiper.

Samuel John Peploe

(27 January 1871 – 11 October 1935) was a Scottish Post-Impressionist painter, noted for his still life works and for being one of the group of four painters that became known as the Scottish Colourists. The other colourists were John Duncan Fergusson, Francis Cadell and Leslie Hunter.

More of this  here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Peploe

The Scottish Colourists

The artists, Samuel John Peploe (1871-1935); John Duncan Fergusson (1874-1961); George Leslie Hunter (1877-1931) and Francis Campbell Boileau Cadell (1883-1937) have achieved international acclaim in recent years following major retrospective exhibitions at the Royal Academy in London and the National Galleries of Scotland in Edinburgh. Despite the diversity of their work and their relatively independent careers, they are now recognised as an identifiable movement within the history of art and their influence is still apparent in painting today.

The four painters became known as the Scottish Colourists because they grafted their knowledge of contemporary French Art – Monet, Matisse, and Cezanne - onto the painterly traditions of Scotland, redefining the qualities of light and colour in their still life, landscapes, figurative paintings and drawings into their own singular styles.

More of this here

http://www.exploreart.co.uk/artistic_styles_details.asp?artistid=62&artisticstyleid=4

A Biography

For those who want it, A more in depth biography:

Peploe was a passionate and serious artist who devoted himself to work but also had powerful influence on a surprisingly wide circle of people, including many artists of the next generation. Born in Edinburgh and educated at the Collegate School in Charlotte Square, he had good academic ability but no interest in the professions, preferring to walk, sail or sketch.
By 1893 he was enrolled for classes at the Trustees Academy (the forerunner to Edinburgh School of Art) and the following year was in Paris at the Académie Julian under the neo classicist, William Bourgereau and later at the Académie Colarossi. A long period of study nurtured his natural ability and helped him perfect an early style based on Dutch masters, particularly Franz Hals, and Edouard Manet. He began a lifelong habit of taking painting trips to northern France and the Western Isles, accompanied by J D Fergusson whom he had met in Paris. He was successful in exhibiting his work and regularly submitted paintings to the Royal Scottish Academy, Royal Glasgow Institute and the Society of Scottish Artists.
His first one-man show was held at the Scottish Gallery in Edinburgh in 1903. By 1906 his earlier still life and figure paintings, characterised by dark backgrounds, gave way to paler colours, greys and pinks. This was in part due to a move to a new lighter studio in the East end of Edinburgh at York Place, from his previous west-end base at Shandwick Place. His second exhibition in 1909 was successful but his eyes were turning to Paris and the next year, he moved there with his new wife, Margaret MacKay, whom he had met on a painting trip to the Isle of Barra in 1894. France liberated his palette and on his return to Edinburgh in 1912 with dozens of paintings and a young son, Willie, the new work proved to be much too advanced for the city’s audience and his original dealer. Unperturbed, Peploe put on his own show at the New Gallery in Shandwick Place, where the Society of Eight (including Cadell, John Lavery and James Paterson) had their inaugural exhibition in the same year.
For the next fifteen years Peploe retained a brilliant palette, evolving a mature style containing elements of Cezanne and Matisse. By the late 1920s he had reverted to a more sonorous tonal painting, still enlivened by brilliant colour chords, but weightier and cooler. In 1933 he taught two terms at Edinburgh College of Art making quite an impact. Best known for his still life paintings of roses or tulips, Peploe had a wide range of subjects including figure and landscape painting.
From 1914 he was a regular visitor to Dumfries and Galloway, particularly Kirkcudbright and also from 1919 onwards to the isles of Iona. On the recommendation of Cadell he visited Cassis in the South of France in 1924, and returned in 1928 and 1930. His landscapes have a conviction and a passion, which belie the rather diffident, shy public face of the artist. His family and closest friends knew a wickedly funny, compassionate and sincere man.
Text source: Samuel Peploe (Guy Peploe, S J Peploe’s grandson); the Dictionary of Scottish Painters, (Halsby & Harris) and The Scottish Colourists, (Philip Long).

delete reply rabbitfriendhere wrote on Aug 5 the four colourists remind me just a bit of the group of seven as well. :-)

delete reply rabbitfriendhere wrote on Aug 5 this is amazing art and i love the four colourists! Samuel John Poploe was born on my birthday. :-)

delete reply artprevails wrote on Aug 5 So much good background on the way Peploe's art evolved. And I really enjoyed the You Tube video. Thank you! Peploe's art is wonderful.

delete reply aaranaardvark wrote on Aug 5 forgetmenot525 said thanks, glad you like them, if you want to see more of the 'Scottish Colourists', look up my tag 'scottish colouristrs', there are quite a few posts and albums of these of these painters. Thanks I will :-)

delete reply nemo4sun wrote on Aug 5 these are great presentations of the medium of paint were the beauty of the work is not just the subject but how the paint is applied and draws one into the work i notice that a lot in your own work :)

edit delete reply forgetmenot525 wrote on Aug 5 nemo4sun said he knows his way with a brush! :) yep.............thats what I thought, except that sometimes he abandons his brush in favour of a pallet knife, and he still knows his way around even without the brush

delete reply nemo4sun wrote on Aug 5 he knows his way with a brush! :)

edit delete reply forgetmenot525 wrote on Aug 5 aaranaardvark said Thanks for the info on the Scottish Colourists whom I'd never heard of prior to reading your post. thanks, glad you like them, if you want to see more of the 'Scottish Colourists', look up my tag 'scottish colouristrs', there are quite a few posts and albums of these of these painters.

delete reply aaranaardvark wrote on Aug 5, edited on Aug 5 Thanks for the info on the Scottish Colourists whom I'd never heard of prior to reading your post. The Peploe paintings are wonderful, I especially like those roofscapes and churches. A very interesting bio too, the video was a good contextual aid and the music was just perfect. What more can I say Loretta? Nice one :-)

delete reply mitchylr wrote on Aug 5 Very nice art. I particularly like the second one from the top.

delete reply kathyinozarks wrote on Aug 5 his works are beautiful-I love them-thanks Loretta

delete reply skaviva wrote on Aug 5 That was interesting. Thank you.

delete reply pestep55 wrote on Aug 5 Even here the vibrance and definition comes though, chipper sound on the video /:-)

delete reply brendainmad wrote on Aug 5 It's so nice you can find a video of his paintings.

Art,. Fergusson

Yesterday I spend an hour or so wandering around the Fergusson Gallery in Perth. The first pleasant surprise was the gallery itself. It’s a grade A listed structure originally built as Perths first Waterworks. It was designed by Dr Adam Anderson ( engineer and then rector of Perth Academy) and completed in 1832. It’s one of Scotlands best cast iron industrial monuments.
It’s also the earliest known example of cast iron building in Scotland. Perth used to use the river Tay as its main source of water but as early as 1750 the Town council recommended looking for alternative sources of fresh water due to contamination of the river. By 1820 no solution had been found and Anderson was appointed by the council to find a suitable supply.
It wasn’t until about ten years later that Anderson, unable to come up with a viable supply of fresh water put forward his extraordinary and very radical plan to build an infiltration system. His scheme was probably only accepted because the town recognized his previous success at providing the town with its first gas supply.  Anderson acted as architect, planner, chemist, geologist, physicist and engineer. An Act of Parliament was needed (granted 1829) to authorize the construction of Perths first waterworks. The waterworks was designed as a massive sandstone drum, sandstone being the local stone, surmounted by a cast iron water tank and covered by an iron dome.
This wonderful building has been threatened with demolition several times but it was finally saved from the threat of demolition and restored to its original condition by public concern and the Perth Civic trust in the 1960’s. It was initially used as the tourist information centre, when they were re-housed it was used as a general gallery by Perth council and now, after extensive refurbishment, it is the permanent home of the Fergusson collection and the National Centre for the study and appreciation of his work. The Fergusson gallery was opened 0n Fergusson’s birthday 9th march 1992.
http://www.pkc.gov.uk/Education+and+learning/Museums+and+galleries/Fergusson+Gallery/Fergusson was born in Leith near Edinburgh March 9th 1874. His parents both came from Pitlochry and Fergusson always considered Perthshire and the highlansda his spiritual home. As a young man he enrolled at Edinburgh to train as a painter but after only a few months he left to study on his own. He set himself a rigid timetable of painting and drawing from life mostly in the open air. His inspiration came from the Glasgow boys, a group of painters based around the Glasgow School of Art and the French naturalist painters.
He visited and studied in France regularly learning to make small quick studies which could later be worked from in a studio. One of the biggest influences during this time was Whistler, especially the work exhibited in Paris at the Memorial exhibition 1905.
He continued to live and work in different parts of France, and in 1913, in Paris, he met his lifelong partner Margaret Morris, a young dancer and painter who was visiting Paris with her own dance company.
During the war years Fergusson and Margaret returned to Britain, she stayed in London and he divided his time between her in London and his family in Edinburgh. Toward the end of the war he was commissioned to make a series of paintings in the naval dockyard Portsmouth.
 At the end of the war Margaret began establishing her various dance schools and Fergusson developed his reputation as one of Scotland’s greatest painters. He died in 1961 and it was Margaret Morris who inherited most of his work. She realized its importance and it was her who, in 1963, established the J D Fergusson Art Foundation to administer the collection.
The collection had, at that time, no permanent home but was loaned out regularly to various other international galleries. Now the collection of over 150 oil paintings, hundreds of watercolours and drawings, 23 sculptures, and around 60 and sketch books are all housed and stored under one roof. The archives, consisting of around 3000 letters, 500 photographs and Fergussons personal library are also part of the permanent collection. I have to say………..what a grand day out that was 

For more information see
http://www.exploreart.co.uk/artistic_styles_details.asp?ArtistID=27&ArtisticStyleID=4
Also, quite a long time ago I did another post on Fergusson, here
http://forgetmenot525.multiply.com/journal/item/62/J._D._Fergusson_Scottish_Colourist
The red sail is one of the paintings Fergusson was commissioned to paint of Portsmouth Dockyard.
John Duncan Fergusson
Oil Painting
Fine Art
In this late painting, Fergusson shows how his association with the Fauvists, affected his work. Fergusson settled in Paris in 1907 and soon after his work underwent radical chqnge. He began to paint using bold colours and simple, flattened shapes. Even in this late work, probably painted after Fergusson settled in Glasgow, the lasting influence of Fauvists can be seen
He is primarily remembered a one of the Scottish Colourists, they were four Scottish artists who worked independently of one another but believed in the same approach to painting. These men were Samuel John Peploe, John Duncan Fergusson, George Leslie Hunter and Francis Boileau Cadell. The group all trained in France and the French influence can be seen in their work. Fergusson, more than the others was influenced in his later work by the Fauvist movement. 

delete reply mitchylr wrote on Jan 16 Sounds like a grand day out. Great to see a wonderful old building saved from demolition and then given a great new lease of life as the home of this artist's work. I rather like his artistic style.

delete reply greenwytch wrote on Jan 16 sounds like you've had yourself quite an adventure! thanks for teaching me a bunch of new stuff. HUGS

delete reply djdx wrote on Jan 16 I did see a few things that reminded me of Paul Serusier and the Nabis. Your page looks pretty even if this is not how you wanted it. I am seeing bands of flowers with a peachy background.

delete reply rabbitfriendhere wrote on Jan 15 i learned a lot very interesting :-)

delete reply nemo4sun wrote on Jan 15 wow! great stuff here :)

Art, Cadell, The Orange Blind

  


I've written about Cadell before, and yesterday this article in the Scotsman caught my eye. It makes interesting reading, I've admired the work of Cadell for years but I didn't know too much about his life, this article fills in the blanks, puts flesh on the bones...............

How did one of Scotland's most successful artists fall from glittering, privileged world to die in poverty?

published Date: 08 October 2011
By Tim Cornwell

Article in full here

http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/scotland/How-did-one-of-Scotland39s.6849787.jp

HE IS one of Scotland's most revered Colourist painters whose work sells today for more than £500,000.
But a curator researching the life of FCB Cadell has uncovered the sad story of how the artist's final years were dogged by ill-health before his death in penury, aged 54.
Alice Strang, the curator working on the National Galleries of Scotland's first exhibition devoted to Cadell in 70 years discovered that the artist who enjoyed a bohemian life of parties and drinking in Edinburgh, died in 1937 with an uncashed cheque for £50 in his pocket from a fund for indigent artists.

In the months before his death, Cadell, who was suffering from cancer and cirrhosis of the liver, wrote to patrons offering to sell his paintings for as little as £10. He also held half-price sales of his work at his home and on one occasion turned up at a neighbour's home in such a dishevelled state that his host would not let him in.
Cadell's will also confirms that he left his entire estate to his loyal "manservant" and live-in companion of more than 20 years, Charles Oliver. "Except family portraits and silver which I bequeath to Jean (his sister] and Gruff (Jean's son], I leave everything to Charles Oliver, my most faithful friend," he wrote. It is likely to have included scores of artworks, potentially worth millions today, but almost unsellable at the time.
Cadell's estate was valued at less than £500 and the uncashed check from the Alexander Nasmyth Fund for Decayed Scottish Artists represented a substantial share of his wealth. "It's quite poignant," said Ms Strang.

It's a far cry from the glamorous world Cadell inhabited as a younger man and the success he was to achieve after his death. Last year, Cadell's Florian's Cafe in Venice told for  £553,250, a record for the artist and one which confirmed his place among the most successful Scottish artists. An Edinburgh Academy schoolboy, Francis Campbell Boileau Cadell was taken to Paris by his mother as a teenager to study painting after his talent was singled out by the Glasgow Boys painter, Arthur Melville…............................more of his work here
http://forgetmenot525.multiply.com/photos/album/320/Cadell 

delete reply acousticeagle wrote on Oct 10, '11 What a tragic end. It makes me think about the sensitivity that some artists can have. Some need looking after, I think and need a benefactor. Anyone can be an alcholic, but I find that there's also the artistic temperament at work in some. And it can be a delicate and melancholic constitution.

delete reply mitchylr wrote on Oct 10, '11 Yes, your page looks back to normal now.

delete reply bennett1 wrote on Oct 10, '11 The article is indeed illuminating. I hope we have come further as a society in accepting and celebrating homosexuality.

delete reply bennett1 wrote on Oct 10, '11 Your avatar is back as well as that lovely orange shade. Artists often swim against the stream of society and those who are truly innovative all the more so.

delete reply mitchylr wrote on Oct 10, '11 I've had problems with Multiply over the weekend. I was locked out for more than 24 hours, and I've been told that while I was, a lot of my page couldn't be seen. It seems ok again now. You still seem to be having problems. As I write this, your avatar seems to have disappeared. Cadell is not an artist I'm familiar with, but his story appears to parallel that of other artists who went on to greater fame after death. Will have a look at the album you posted later, off to work now........

delete reply veryfrank wrote on Oct 9, '11 I definitely remember Cadell, the orange shade is unforgettable. That is an interesting article. Always so sad that creativity takes on a greater appreciation and value after one's death.

delete reply nemo4sun wrote on Oct 9, '11 ((((hug))) well i apperciate all your work a tragic end to a lovely artist :)

edit delete reply forgetmenot525 wrote on Oct 9, '11 pestep55 said I had the problem last week, some pics loaded, some would not ahhhhhhhhhhh..............more of the multiply 'new improved service' no doubt...........its still a bit on and off, there are another 6 pictures of his paintings that i gave up trying to load.

delete reply pestep55 wrote on Oct 9, '11 forgetmenot525 said been trying on and off all day to post this, the pictures would not load I had the problem last week, some pics loaded, some would not, and not all links would work, finally got it all working today /:-)

delete reply esoterika713 wrote on Oct 9, '11 Nice Art Sundy Loretta. Cadell had a similar life style to some other artists as well. The starving artist comes to mind. Funny that when great artists like Cadell and Van Gogh often aren't recognized for their work until after they die. Strange that. ")

edit delete reply forgetmenot525 wrote on Oct 9, '11 Grrrrr what on earth is wrong with Multiply today??..............been trying on and off all day to post this, the pictures would not load.........never mind, seems ok now :-)