Tsg modern masters iv (1)

modern masters ivmodern

masters iv

the scottish

gallery, edinburgh

16 Dundas Street, Edinburgh EH3 6HZ tel 0131 558 1200 email [email protected]

modern masters iv4 – 28 february 2015

Front cover: Elizabeth Blackadder, Flowers and Jug (detail), 1968, oil on canvas, 50 x 60 cms (cat. 2)Left: F.C.B. Cadell, George Street and Charlotte Square from the Artist’s Studio, c.1909, oil on canvas, 79 x 64 cms (cat. 6)

wilhelmina barns-grahamdame elizabeth blackadderjohn byrnef.c.b. cadellvictoria crowejames cummingstanley cursiterpat douthwaitej.d. fergusson

sir william gillieswilliam mervyn glassdavid michiejames morrisondenis peploes.j. peploeperpetua popebarbara raeduncan shanks

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Opposite: William Gillies at Loch Tummel, 1936

IntroductionThe Scottish Gallery has a history which marches with the modern period. We were established in 1896 by the firm of Aitken Dott & Sons to deal in contemporary Scottish art with the opening exhibition being over 100 works surveying current and recent trends in Scottish painting. The following 109 years encompasses what we call modernism and while The Scottish Gallery has not always been evangelical most of the figures whose reputations have survived the changes in fashion and emphasis which accompany a period of radical change were represented by the gallery. We are in the happy position now to be able to look back as well as forwards and put on shows of individual works which inform our understanding of the period, including earlier works by artists very much still with us. This edition has earlier works by Elizabeth Blackadder, John Byrne, David Michie, James Morrison, Barbara Rae and Duncan Shanks; an exceptional group of Gillies watercolours and important individual examples from S.J. Peploe, Perpetua Pope and James Cumming. We also offer an extraordinary work by F.C.B. Cadell, quite literally unseen since 1937. There are rediscovered groups of work from Denis Peploe and J.D. Fergusson; the first three, vigorous, atmospheric landscapes of Wester Ross and the Fergussons including four of the most charming drawings we have ever seen, discovered in a drawer in a private home.

guy peploethe scottish gallery


Wilhelmina Barns-Graham cbe, hrsa, hrsw (1912-2004) 1 Eight Lines, 2001

etching, 33.2 x 61 cms, edition 52/75 signed & dated lower right

provenanceThe Barns-Graham Charitable Trust; Tom Caldwell Gallery, Ireland

“In 1947 the artist Michael Ayrton argued in print that at the heart of British art (that is, the key elements that characterised it) lay a preoccupation with linear rhythms. Barns-Graham’s work as a whole, and her drawings in particular, would certainly lend weight to this view. The quality of her draughtsmanship has never been in contention. It was the aspect of her work most admired by the traditional artists of St Ives when she first arrived there, and most importantly to her, Ben Nicholson and others amongst her contemporaries recognised the quality, sensitivity, and power of her line.”

Lynne Green, W Barns-Graham, A Studio Life, Lund Humphries, 2001, p.213

The etching Eight Lines is a continuation of her series of drawings and mixed media works commenced c.1975 and most likely is based on her studies of East Sands in St Andrews.

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Elizabeth Blackadder dbe, ra, rsa, rsw, rgi (b.1931) 2 Flowers and Jug, 1968

oil on canvas, 50 x 60 cms signed & dated lower left

The artist spoke in conversation with William Packer in 1989 about the construction of her still life painting and use of objects:

“The table-top or whatever it was I set them out on was shown as tipping forward closer and closer to the picture surface. It was really just a question of losing the table altogether. Some have seen this as coming from the example of Anne Redpath, but I see it more as a common tradition that goes back to Byzantine painting and mosaics. It certainly gives wonderful freedom from the conventions of later Western art.”

Duncan MacMillan writes of the objects in a Blackadder still life, collected in profusion throughout her life and travels,

“They have not lost their identity as they have been fused into the new larger identity of the painting. Nor are they simply picked up and put down in the middle of a painting for they are touched by memory and imagination.”

Elizabeth Blackadder in her Studio, November 2010



Elizabeth Blackadder dbe, ra, rsa, rsw, rgi (b.1931) 3 Achiltibuie, 1970

watercolour and pastel, 40 x 49 cms signed & dated lower right

exhibitedFestival Exhibition, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh, 1974, cat. 62

provenancePrivate Collection, Channel Islands

In front of the landscape, Blackadder is still able to create an imaginative space but at the same time capture the essence of a place. Her dark islands are compositionally vital but also the reality of the Summer Isles; the triangle of a ruined cottage gable-end is as carefully chosen as the shape of a jug in a still life but also a real, poignant presence in the landscape.



Elizabeth Blackadder dbe, ra, rsa, rsw, rgi (b.1931) 4 Tulips, 1998

screenprint, 75 x 95 cms, edition 50/80 signed lower right

provenanceThe Artist’s Studio; Private Collection, Edinburgh

Elizabeth Blackadder is a master printmaker. As with her painting, the subjects are taken from her wide experience, travels and imagination. Tulips relates to her most recent watercolours and draws on the wonderful natural variety from her garden.




John Byrne rsa (b.1940) 5 Girl with Monkey, 1972

coloured etching, 35 x 25 cms, edition 10/12 signed ‘Patrick’ lower right & titled lower left

provenanceThe Artist’s Studio

illustratedRobert Hewison, John Byrne: Art and Life, Lund Humphries, 2011, p.39

Girl with Monkey was the first print John Byrne ever made, commissioned by Glasgow Print Studio shortly after its opening in 1972. The etching is signed ‘Patrick’, a persona Byrne first adopted in 1967. Having been greatly interested in the work of primitive painters for a number of years, Byrne sent some of his own paintings to the Portal Gallery in London with a letter stating that they had been created by his father, Patrick, who had received no formal art training.

“The monkey refers to the one he was promised he would be given by an uncle on his return from Burma in 1945. No monkey was forthcoming.”

Robert Hewison, John Byrne: Art and Life, Lund Humphries, 2011, p.39


F.C.B. Cadell rsa, rsw (1883-1937)6 George Street and Charlotte Square from the Artist’s Studio, c.1909

oil on canvas, 79 x 64 cmssigned lower lefton verso: Denis Peploe, Begonias, oil on canvas, 64 x 79 cms

provenanceDenis Peploe, RSA, Edinburgh


When Cadell died in early December 1937 his sister Jean Percival Clark, well-known as the actress Jean Cadell, came up to Edinburgh to sort out his affairs; she would act as his executor along with his old friend Ted Stewart. She knew the Peploe family well through her brother, who had been so very distraught at the death of his friend two years earlier and she enlisted the help of Denis Peploe, at this time a post-Dip student at Edinburgh College of Art, to help sort through the studio. She gifted to him some of the materials: paint, brushes and canvases which otherwise would be homeless. Amongst the canvases must have been George Street and Charlotte Square, taken off its stretcher, turned and re-stretched ready to be used again. Why Cadell abandoned the painting, which is finished and bears a strong signature is not known.

Many years later, Denis Peploe painted his own picture, Begonias, a still life on a trestle table and whitewashed over the Cadell exposed on the verso. His picture is likely to have sold in the mid-seventies and has only recently come back onto the market.

The Scottish Gallery acquired the Denis Peploe and in the process of conservation discovered the Cadell on the verso. Removal from the stretcher revealed the portion not whitewashed over and including the signature bottom left.

Denis Peploe, Begonias, on verso of painting.


George Street and Charlotte Square from the Artist’s Studio, c.1909

Corner of George Street and Charlotte Square, December 2014

The Cadell was painted from the artist’s studio at 112 George Street and looks across the street towards the opposite side of George Street and across to Charlotte Square, including the central pediment above what is now Bute House. He has included a woman crossing the street and the charming detail of another female figure leaning from a ground floor window. At this date, around 1909, the townhouse before the corner was still complete but the shop front at the corner and the bay window at first floor level were already as they are today.

It is a remarkable painting, not just for its unusual history but as a rare, ambitious townscape. He would paint again from his studio window when he was in Regent Terrace around 1932, looking across to Arthur Seat but otherwise our picture is unique. Its date, a year or so before his trip to Venice, allies it to a number of freely painted interiors of his studio often including the chandelier and mantle piece and the female figure (is it his elegant model crossing the street?).The palette is relatively restrained, again typical of this time, but he uses strong chromatic notes and brilliant devices like the reflected afternoon light on the windows of the buildings opposite.

The Denis Peploe is perfectly preserved on the verso, and is a typical vigorous, colourful still life created with the palette knife which could one day be represented as the A-side.


F.C.B. Cadell, rsa, rsw (1883-1937) 7 Iona North End and Ben More, Mull, c.1925

oil on panel, 43 x 36 cmssigned lower right & inscribed with title verso

exhibitedCadell and Peploe on Iona, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh, 2014

provenanceIan MacNicol, Glasgow

Unlike Peploe, who painted exclusively at the North End of the Island, Cadell painted all over Iona but could not evade

“the charms of Ben More and the Burg.” He painted mainly on panels and used a painting box which he could carry around. He prepared his panels with a gesso ground and invariably inscribed the verso with the warning, “absorbent ground never varnish.” His jewel-like colour, high tone and chalky surface are the perfect tools to capture the ever-changing island.



Victoria Crowe obe, dhc, frse, ma (rca), rsa, rsw (b.1945) 8 Lilium Candidum I, 2006

mixed media, 38 x 116 cms signed lower left, inscribed with title lower right

provenanceProfessors Sir Kenneth and Lady Noreen Murray, Edinburgh

illustratedVictoria Crowe by Duncan Macmillan, Antique Collectors Club, 2012, p.110

“I made the Lilium Candidum studies to record forms of this flower in addition to the art historical lily and the ‘real’ three dimensional plant. The specimens I chose were unexpected in that the information about leaf structure, the grouping and the faded brown flowers of the specimens made the impact and strangeness more telling. In art these lilies are used as symbols of purity and peace in association with the Virgin Mary, but before that they were symbols of the goddess Isis, and subsequently the Black Madonnas. The polygonatum is again a Marian symbol. It’s a plant I have used in many still life paintings in its three dimensional dried form, now colourless, and I wanted to find some refreshed imagery.”

Victoria Crowe



Victoria Crowe obe, dhc, frse, ma (rca), rsa, rsw (b.1945) 9 Inflorescence, 2007

artist’s book, 21 x 30 cms, edition 2 of 10

“Inspired by the herbals and early plant manuscripts, I worked on a series of ‘open-book’ images, each one a unique mixed media piece, over-printed with a sketch-book matrix. In collaboration with Robert Adam and Carol Robertson of Graal Press, I also produced an Artist’s book – Inflorescence. A limited edition of 10 books, Inflorescence exists as an object somewhere between a diary and a missal, a sketchbook and a book of hours. There’s no didactic logic to it – it evolves and is held together by visual and symbolic links. It’s a tactile experience made with about 20 hand-made papers ranging from fine tissue to heavy embossed paper. It was hand-bound in Venice; it is meant to be precious – to be a contemplative experience and an antidote to the form of knowledge presented through plastic screen and cold text. Its images are either hand-drawn, silk screen printed, collaged or etched, each book subtly different.”

Victoria Crowe, 2012



Victoria Crowe obe, dhc, frse, ma (rca), rsa, rsw (b.1945) 10 Large Tree Group, Winter, 2014

etching and screenprint, 50.5 x 71 cm, edition of 250signed lower right


“Jenny Armstrong was born in 1903 at the farm in the lower Pentland Hills. Victoria Crowe’s pictures pay tribute to the life and work of this individual and at the same time record a rural way of life, once common, but now changing so fast that it has evolved beyond recognition.”

John Leighton and James Holloway, A Shepherd’s Life: Paintings of Jenny Armstrong by Victoria Crowe, Scottish National Portrait Gallery, 2000

Victoria Crowe painted Large Tree Group in 1975 which is an iconic work from the Shepherd’s Life series. The etching and screenprint made in 2014 pays homage to the impact and continuing memory of Jenny Armstrong. Dovecot Studios, Edinburgh who celebrated their centenary in 2012, commissioned a large-scale tapestry of ‘Large Tree Group’ which was unveiled in 2013 in the exhibition Fleece to Fibre: The Making of The Large Tree Group Tapestry during the Edinburgh International Festival. The tapestry was subsequently acquired for the permanent collection of National Museums Scotland.

“In its austerity and its poverty in material things, Jenny Armstrong’s life was a little like that of a medieval saint or hermit. For her, however, this was simply practical and not a sacrifice made in the name of the doubtful rewards of religion, though she went to the Kirk (at least in winter, in summer hers was the Kirk of the fields). It was balanced, too, by the richness of her engagement with practical things and the natural world that was their frame. It is easy to see how such a person could represent an echo for Victoria in both her own early religious experience and her romantic Tolstoyan ideas of the land, its people and the great continuities they shared.”

Victoria Crowe by Duncan Macmillan, 2012, p39



James Cumming rsa, rsw (1922-1991) 11 Untitled, c.1960

oil on board, 40.5 x 40.5 cmssigned lower left

provenancePrivate Collection, Aberdeen

James Cumming was born in Dunfermline in 1922 and studied at Edinburgh College of Art where he then lectured until the early 1980s. He lived for more than a year in the remote island community of Callanish on the Isle of Lewis after being awarded a travel scholarship from the college in 1950. His residency on the island lead to his acclaimed series of Hebridean paintings and much of his work shows clear inspiration from life on the Island and influences of Callanish and its standing stones.

As well as his Hebridean figurative work, he is noted for his still life compositions which are freely balanced between abstraction and figuration. In the 1960s he started to examine more geometrical and purer abstract themes and many of his later works derive from investigations into the Electron Microscope and his interest in microbiology and cellular structures as is apparent in this particular painting.

He had solo exhibitions at The Scottish Gallery in 1962, 1971 and the Edinburgh Festivals of 1972 and 1985, as well as a major retrospective memorial exhibition at the Gallery in 1995 which continued to tour throughout Scotland.



Stanley Cursiter rsa, pprsw (1887-1976) 12 Gullane Sands, 1919

oil on canvas, laid on board, 50 x 60 cms signed & dated lower left

exhibitedCentenary Exhibition, Pier Arts Centre, Orkney, 1987

provenanceIan MacInnes and thence by descent, Orkney

illustratedStanley Cursiter, A Life of the Artist by Pamela Beasant, Orkney Museum and Heritage, 2007, p. 41

This is an optimistic, post-war picture which captures the end of an era. Bathing machines are parked in the shallows, a child sits on a donkey and family groups, shivering in towels are reflected in the wet sand. In the nineteenth century, no trip to the seaside was complete without a dip in the sea from a bathing machine. These vehicles looked like beach huts on wheels and they could be hired for half hour periods. Patrons would get in at the top of the beach, change out of their normal clothes as a horse pulled them towards the sea, then step directly into the water from the front of the machine. For more than 150 years this was how most bathers experienced the sea. Queen Victoria even had her own personal bathing machine built at Osbourne on the Isle of Wight.

There is some dispute as to the location of this painting. Although it was exhibited at Cursiter’s Centenary Exhibition at the Piers Arts Centre and illustrated in Pamela Beasant’s monograph on the artist, as Gullane Sands, there exists in the Pier Arts Centre collection, a watercolour of the same view entitled Morning, Prestwick, Ayrshire, 1920. This painting is also illustrated in Beasant’s book on page 47.



Stanley Cursiter rsa, pprsw (1887-1976) 13 Costa Head, 1947

oil on canvas, 43.5 x 56.5 cmssigned & dated lower right

exhibitedThe Pier Arts Centre, Orkney, May-June 1980; Rhythms of Land and Sea, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh, 2014, cat. 12

provenanceEric Linklater, thence by descent

The first sentence of Pamela Beasant’s biography of 2007 runs “Stanley Cursiter – artist, designer, curator, administrator, royal painter and limner, art historian, writer, broadcaster, amateur architect – with a list of letters that spilled over on to two lines

– was first and foremost an ‘Orkneyman’.” His professional achievements were considerable,

culminating with his stewardship of the National Galleries of Scotland from 1930 until 1948, but should not overshadow his genius as a painter. That undoubted genius is expressed best in his Orkney pictures where his deep familiarity with the light and inherent drama of sea, cliff, land and sky chimes best with his keen eye and painterly skills. Yes, his futurist works made before the First War, elegant subject pictures of the twenties, symbolist lithographs, late abstract work, First War drawings and topographical watercolours all contribute to our reckoning of Cursiter the painter but his real achievement is realised on his beloved Orkney Isles.



Pat Douthwaite (1939-2002) 14 Cat and Chair, 1979

charcoal, 65 x 50 cms signed & dated lower right

Douthwaite was a prolific draftswoman, favouring a large sheet. Her drawings are usually of a single, arresting subject made with charcoal on white paper or coloured chalks, often on coloured paper. Her animals include the wild and domestic, exotic and fireside. Cats are a favourite and 1979 saw her exhibition of Egyptian Queen – Drawings of Cats, at the 369 Gallery and Lemons Maguire stars in a series of animated observations in watercolour (often with letrasetted epigrams or titles). This drawing depicts a large, imperious feline who has adopted a superior position on a favourite chair and is unlikely to be moved for human convenience.


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J.D. Fergusson rba (1874-1961) 15 Still Life with Fruit, c.1920

watercolour, 19 x 24 cms

provenanceCollection of Madame A.M. Martinez; Cyril Gerber Fine Art, Glasgow

illustratedDuncan MacMillan, Scottish Art 1460-2000, Edinburgh, Mainstream Publishing, 1990, p.325

Although more prolific in oil, Fergusson started painting in watercolour after his first return from Paris in 1914, perhaps influenced by the example of Charles Rennie Mackintosh. This still life, dated to around 1920, is typically vibrant in colour and has a strong composition and lyrical intensity.

J.D Fergusson and S.J Peploe at Paris-Plage, c.1907



J.D. Fergusson rba (1874-1961) 16 Two Men in Hats, c.1910

charcoal drawing, 22.5 x 15 cms

provenancePrivate Collection, Edinburgh

Fergusson’s advice to would-be independent painters was – “always carry a small, cheap sketchbook, a very soft pencil, and make quick, rough sketches of anything around you; never correct a sketch, just make another; don’t try to make a good drawing, you won’t – or by accident, you may! Just keep at it, you are training your eye to see and your hand to respond.” These four sketches are excellent examples of the stylish cafe drawings Fergusson made in Paris in the first decade of the 20th century. Quickly rendered, with a few dashing marks of conté or charcoal, these drawings encapsulate the style and mood of pre-war Paris.

J.D. Fergusson quoted in Café Drawings in Edwardian Paris from the Sketchbooks of J.D. Fergusson, Blackie, Glasgow, 1974, p.5



J.D. Fergusson rba (1874-1961) 17 Two Women in Hats, Greeting, c.1910




J.D. Fergusson rba (1874-1961) 18 Woman in Hat from the Back, c.1910




J.D. Fergusson rba (1874-1961) 19 Woman in Hat, Seated with Drink, c.1910





Sir William Gillies cbe, rsa, ra, pprsw (1898-1973) 20 House through the Trees, c.1950

pen and watercolour, 29 x 45 cmssigned lower left

provenanceDuncan Miller Fine Arts, London; Private Collection, Edinburgh

The subject may well be Shiphorn Farm, just off the A73 near Eddleston. It represents a favourite subject: a building seen through a screen of trees.


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Sir William Gillies cbe, rsa, ra, pprsw (1898-1973) 21 Harvest, Lyne, 1953

watercolour, 39 x 57 cmssigned & dated lower right

Gillies divided his energy between oil and watercolour; painting in oils was his studio routine, whilst he was happiest working in front of the landscape on his watercolour block. The originality and spontaneity of his landscapes on paper in pencil, pen and ink and pure watercolour, form the core of his reputation. When filmed for the BBC in 1970 he spoke eloquently about his watercolour practice:

“My landscape painting began with watercolour and a great part of my work has continued in this medium and I feel the peculiar qualities of the medium have had a strong influence on my conception of landscape.” And again: “I would plead that… in landscape I have perhaps opened many people’s eyes to some unexpected, some subtle beauties in our daily surroundings. This has been I hope a by-product of my own enjoyment of what I perceive and my great delight in the very act of handling the paint.”

William Gillies on the Lammermuirs c.1920s



Sir William Gillies cbe, rsa, ra, pprsw (1898-1973) 22 Halkerston, 1960

pencil and watercolour, 25 x 34.5 cmssigned & dated lower right, signed on label verso

provenanceDr Robert A. Lillie Collection, cat. 83; Stone Gallery, Newcastle upon Tyne; Private Collection, Ayr

For many people William Gillies is the great painter of the Scottish landscape in the middle decades of the twentieth century. Dr. Robert Lillie a collector and friend of the artist compared his work to Robert Burns, “the poet himself could not be more authentic and direct – simple, sensuous and passionate”. Lillie bought his first picture by Gillies in 1940. When he died in 1977 he had amassed a vast collection of Scottish paintings, all jam-packed into his bungalow on the outskirts of Edinburgh. Lillie owned 372 pictures by Gillies; an extraordinary commitment to the work of one artist.



Sir William Gillies cbe, rsa, ra, pprsw (1898-1973) 23 Crows at Lyne, 1961

watercolour, 24 x 34.5 cmssigned & dated lower left

exhibitedSummer Exhibition, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh, 1990, cat. 35


Gillies was very familiar with the A72 east and west of Peebles and painted several watercolours around Lyne and Lyne Station. Here the sky is brooding over the Meldon Hills as rain approaches, and the crows circle ominously.


Sir William Gillies cbe, rsa, ra, pprsw (1898-1973) 24 Distant View of the Pentlands, c.1961

watercolour, 25 x 35 cmssigned lower right, label verso signed by William Gillies and somewhat confusingly titled “Black Cattle, Borthwick”!



Sir William Gillies cbe, rsa, ra, pprsw (1898-1973) 25 Near Portmore, c.1967

pencil and watercolour, 24.5 x 35 cmssigned lower left

exhibitedChristmas Exhibition, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh, 1967, cat. 9

provenancePrivate Collection, Ayr

Portmore is a small estate sitting 800ft up on the side of a Peeblesshire hill near Eddleston.



William Mervyn Glass rsa, pssa (1885-1965) 26 Rum and Skye from Iona, 1920’s

oil on board, 36 x 44 cms signed with initials lower right

provenanceTom Bell Fine Art, Ayrshire

William Mervyn Glass was born in Ellon, Aberdeenshire. He studied at Gray’s School of Art in Aberdeen and the Royal Scottish Academy Life School in Edinburgh and in Paris and Italy. A painter of seascapes and landscapes of the Scottish Highlands and Islands, he was particularly fond of painting Iona. He was President of the Society of Scottish Artists from 1930-1933, as well as a member of the RSA where he exhibited for many years. He also exhibited at the Royal Glasgow Institute of Fine Arts, the Aberdeen Artists’ Society and the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool.

In this painting, Glass has depicted the view from the North End; a well visited source of inspiration for the Scottish Colourists, F.C.B. Cadell and S.J. Peploe. We see the Pulpit Rock on the left and Eileen Annraidh on the right. In the background we can see Rum and the Cuillins in Skye.



David Michie obe, rsa, frsa (b.1928) 27 Edge of Beach with Paraglider, c.1995

oil on canvas, 69 x 80 cms signed lower left

provenancePrivate Collection, Dorset

David Michie, son of Anne Redpath was born in St Raphael and remained there until he was eight years old. In this time it is evident that the distinctive colours associated with the French Riviera and sun drenched climates helped shape his love of nature and his unique outlook on the world.

The dominant colour of blue in Edge of Beach with Paraglider transports you to the beach at Biarritz and the painting displays the artist’s humour and ability to capture a moment, inviting you to observe humanity through his eyes.



James Morrison rsa, rsw (b.1932) 28 Bass Rock, 7.ix.1989

oil on board, 33 x 45 cmssigned & dated lower right

exhibitedThe Macaulay Gallery, Stenton, Sept-Oct 1989




James Morrison rsa, rsw (b.1932) 29 Snow at Bonnyton, 20.i.1998

oil on board, 37.5 x 120 cmssigned & dated lower right

exhibitedChristmas Exhibition, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh, Dec. 1998, cat. 79


Bonnyton is a small hamlet in the rural area of Old Rayne in the Garioch region of Aberdeenshire which has south facing views towards the Bennachie range. This wintry snowscape is typical of Morrison’s distinct style of landscape painting. The vast expanse of sky and wide sweep of untouched snow covering the fields of the Aberdeenshire landscape are depicted with thinly applied oil paint in large confident strokes. James Morrison will be exhibiting at The Scottish Gallery in August 2015.



Denis Peploe rsa (1914-1993)30 Ben Damh, Wester Ross, c.1950

oil on board, 30 x 39 cmssigned lower right, signed & titled on label verso

The aspect seems to be to looking north from Plockton up Loch Kishorn towards Ben Damh and the Torridon Mountains with Applecross on the left. It will have been painted on the spot, using one of his father’s painting boxes. The entire landscape artist’s paraphernalia could be packed into a rucksack so that Peploe could walk to find his subjects. He did drive a succession of large motor cars, including at one stage a converted hearse which could in extremis act as a mobile studio. His friends, the Nicolsons, had the Old Manse and Torquil would on occasion take the painter to a remote spot by sea on his yacht, Rodney for a few days wild camping and painting.

Denis Peploe, early 1930s, photograph by W. Barns-Graham



Denis Peploe rsa (1914-1993)31 Plockton, Wester Ross, c.1950

oil on board, 25 x 33 cmssigned lower right; signed & titled on label verso

From the late 1940s based in an ancient caravan in the garden of The Old Manse at Plockton in Wester Ross, Peploe would spend the summer months working, latterly joined by his wife and family. The rugged terrain and ever changing weather became his most prolific and successful subject, a total contrast to the intellectual rigours of the Edinburgh studio.



Denis Peploe rsa (1914-1993)32 Coulin Lodge, Ben Eighe, c.1950

oil on board, 25 x 33 cmssigned lower right; signed & titled on label verso

Ben Eighe is a dramatic, complex mountain in Torridon viewed here from the shore of Loch Coulin to the south of the massif. In 1951, in atrocious weather a converted RAF Lancaster crashed near the summit with the loss of eight lives; the artist has captured a sense of awe which must accompany a love of the high tops.



S.J. Peploe rsa (1871-1935) 33 White Sands, Iona, c.1924

oil on panel, 37.5 x 44 cms signed lower right

exhibitedMemorial Exhibition of Paintings by S.J.Peploe, R.S.A., McLellan Galleries, Glasgow, February 1937, cat. 44, as ‘Rough Sea Iona’; The Thistle Foundation, Pictures from a Private Collection, McLellan Galleries, Glasgow, March 1951, cat. 44; Three Scottish Colourists, Fine Art Society, London and Edinburgh, February – April 1977, cat. 29; Two Scottish Colourists: Samuel John Peploe, R.S.A. and Francis Campbell Boileau Cadell, Lefevre Gallery, London, November – December 1988, cat. 7, as

‘Rough Sea, Iona’

provenanceMajor Ion Harrison, and thence by descent

Peploe first visited Iona in 1919 and was a regular and frequent visitor until 1933. The Iona subjects were very popular and helped cement his reputation in the 1920s. Iona is a small island, dominated by the green of the machair but Peploe only painted at the North End where sand and rocks give way to sea and the islands beyond.

The nature of weather systems on the west coast of Scotland means that Peploe had an ever changing subject; perfect blue sky was anathema to him. He wrote to his friend William Macdonald in November 1923:

“We had miserable weather in Iona this year – worst in living memory – gales and rain the whole time. I got very little done. But that kind of weather suits Iona: the rocks and distant shores seen through falling rain, veil behind veil, take on an elusive quality, and when the light shines through one has visions of rare beauty. I think I prefer it these days to your blue skies and clear distances.”

Samuel, Denis and Margaret Peploe at Iona, c.1925



Perpetua Pope (1916-2013) 34 Findochty, Moray, 1950’s

oil on canvas, 50 x 70 cms signed lower left


Findochty, Moray is a quintessential fishing village on the Aberdeenshire coast. This painting captures the very essence of its charm with the narrow streets lined with small white washed cottages which lead you down to the scenic harbour looking out to the Moray Firth.

Pip who moved to Aberdeenshire with her parents in 1917 must have painted this scene on a visit having moved south to Edinburgh in 1936 to study at Edinburgh College of Art.

Perpetua Pope at Clachtoll, Stoer, 1953



Barbara Rae cbe, ra, rsa, rgi, rsw (b.1943)35 Dark Day – Alisary, 1984

mixed media, 59.5 x 75 cmssigned lower right


“My first mark is usually a wash of colour. Then I might use oil pastel or candle wax or acrylic medium to provide a waterproof barrier. It’s all about activating the surface. I would inject little bits of colour in pastel… in the works on paper I use oil pastels in favourite colours such as manganese blue, pink and orange and cobalt blue and ultramarine and purples.”

Barabara Rae in An Interview with Barbara Rae by Andrew Lambirth, 2008



Barbara Rae cbe, ra, rsa, rgi, rsw (b.1943)36 Lanjaron Field, 1989-90

mixed media on board, 81.5 x 109 cmssigned lower right

exhibitedThe Scottish Gallery at Arco 90, International Contemporary Art Fair, Madrid, January 1990


illustratedAndrew Lambirth, Bill Hare & Gareth Wardell, Barbara Rae, Lund Humphries, 2008, p.151

Having first painted in Spain on a travelling scholarship in 1966, it quickly became one of Barbara Rae’s favoured working destinations. In 1989, she travelled extensively for two months in southern Spain: fascinated by the ancient Moorish mountainous region of Las Alpujarras, in the foothills of Sierra Nevada.

“I return to old haunts to see what has altered since I was last there, what has weathered and degraded. I’m not a landscape painter. What interests me is anything altered by mankind’s hand, historic components, things that make the spirit of a place: an old farmhouse door surrounded by painted flowerpots and rusted farm implements, a terraced hillsides of grapevines harvested for centuries, a flotilla of higgledy-piggledy rooftops, punctuated by repaired tiles and eccentric chimneys.

“It’s not only Spanish influences that attract, it’s the Roman and Moorish influences too. If the background to them has mood and pattern that’s a dividend, but it isn’t the main attraction. I stay in one area as long as possible studying its history and meeting the people before I put brush to sketch book.”



Duncan Shanks rsa, rsw, rgi (b.1937)37 Crossford Winter, 1985-1990

oil on canvas, 155 x 182 cmssigned verso


This view from the studio or garden towards the bridge over the river is a leitmotif for the artist’s life in Crossford. A more or less fixed viewpoint has provided a subject which has changed every day, captured and marshalled a hundred times. In winter the leaves have gone and nature shows its skeleton, sometimes girded in frost or softened with snow, here captured in the early winter evening as the blues hold a glow or darken to inky shadow. This could be a visual accompaniment to Schubert’s Winterreise except that the painter, an impeccable modernist, would never impose an interpretation on the viewer.

Duncan will be exhibiting in the Gallery in June 2015.

Duncan Shanks in his studio, 2011, photograph by John McKenzie



Duncan Shanks rsa, rsw, rgi (b.1937)38 The Studio Cat, 1969

mixed media on paper, 56 x 60 cmssigned lower right


Duncan Shanks and his painter wife Una moved into their house at Crossford, on the river Clyde in the summer of 1967. His studio at the top of the garden has never been an ascetic space but rather contains something of the chaos of nature outside and over the years he has shared it with dormice and feral cats. The cat in this early drawing would not be petted, but would submit to being painted, here encouraged by a saucer of milk and accompanied by a still life of a pot of wild flowers on a bentwood chair. She later had kittens, one of which eventually adopted the Shanks.

modern ma sters iv | 7 7


Duncan Shanks rsa, rsw, rgi (b.1937)39 Roberton Burn, 1981

mixed media on paper, 52 x 54 cmssigned lower right


The burn runs from Wildshaw Hill down to the Clyde at Roberton in South Lanarkshire, a landscape deeply familiar to Shanks, walked endlessly with a sketch pad in all seasons. Here he looks across the water running fast over rocks, pebbles seen clear through clean water before it rushes and bubbles through the stepping stones; one of a thousand observations that represent the artist’s deep engagement with ever changing nature.



16 Dundas Street, Edinburgh EH3 6HZ tel 0131 558 1200 email [email protected]

Right: Pat Douthwaite, Cat and Chair, 1979, charcoal, 65 x 50 cms (cat. 14)

Published by The Scottish Gallery to coincide with the exhibition modern masters iv4 – 28 February 2015

Exhibition can be viewed online at www.scottish-gallery.co.uk/modernmasters

ISBN: 978-1-910267-10-3

Designed by www.kennethgray.co.ukPhotography by John McKenziePrinted by J Thomson Colour Printers

The images on p.3 and p.42 are courtesy of Royal Scottish Academy Archives (Gillies Bequest).

All rights reserved. No part of this catalogue may be reproduced in any form by print, photocopy or by any other means, without the permission of the copyright holders and of the publishers.



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Tsg modern masters iv (1)