Tsg modern masters v

modern masters v

modern

masters v

the scottish

gallery, edinburgh

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

modern masters v6 – 30 January 2016

Front cover: Barbara Rae, Benaderreen Fields, mixed media on canvas, 183 x 214 cms (detail) (cat. 34)Left: Ian Fleming, Haar, 1938, oil on board, 74 x 59 cms (detail) (cat. 17)

robert henderson blythgordon cameronrobert colquhounjames cowiedavid donaldsonphilip eglinjd fergussonian flemingwilliam gearsir william gilliesthe earl haigjohn houston

frances macdonaldellen malcolmjames mcbeydavid mcclurejames morrisondenis peploesj peploebarbara raeduncan shanksadam bruce thomsongeoff uglowwilliam wilson

Opposite: JD Fergusson and S J Peploe at Paris Plage, c. 1907

ForewordPresented as part of our series of survey exhibitions of 20th Century Scottish painting, this edition is particularly rich. The sharp-eyed will notice the inclusion of English maker Philip Eglin as well as several works made in the current rather than the previous century, inclusions to gently remind our audience that we are a broad church, not a specialist. Works of art after all are unique (the word becoming a tautology) standing apart from the context of their making and delivering their message one on one. However it is also perverse not to allow some context to enrich the experience, to make a second viewing more informed, and the short notes which accompany most of the works illustrated on the following pages are designed to do just that. The accumulation of information and stimulation which accompanies the turning of the pages will give a sense of the history of modernism in our country: a sort of primer for the subject. More importantly individual works will assert their independence and speak directly and encourage visits and start the acquisitive juices flowing!

guy peploethe scottish gallery

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Robert Henderson Blyth, rsa, rsw (1919-1970)1 Kinnoul Hill

watercolour, 40 x 53 cmssigned lower right

After the Second World War Robert Henderson Blyth was recruited to Edinburgh College of Art by his friend William Gillies. Edinburgh was an important artistic hub in post war Britain, and it was during this time that Blyth associated himself with painters such as Gillies, Maxwell, Redpath and Adam Bruce Thomson, artists now referred to as the The Edinburgh School.

Gillies and Blyth often worked together in the Highlands or east coast of Scotland, and at times their work became very similar both favouring a pen and wash technique. This scene is looking West to the summit of Kinnoul Hill near Perth, Kinnoul Tower perched on top of the cliff face. The artist uses vivid, non naturalistic colours: lime and bottle greens resonating with each other to enliven the subject.


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Robert Henderson Blyth, rsa, rsw (1919-1970)2 Abernethy

pen and watercolour, 25 x 32 cmssigned lower right

exhibitedThe Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh, 1972, cat. 74

In 1954, Blyth became the head of the Painting School at Gray’s School of Art in Aberdeen where his work become much more ‘colour-field’ and less about drawing. This handsome watercolour of Abernethy, a village near Perth, is most likely painted during his time in Edinburgh and highlights Blyth as the tremendous draughtsman that he was. Blyth always made distinct choices on the information he would include, using pen and ink to suggest form and details, without over complicating the composition with content.


Robert Henderson Blyth, rsa, rsw (1919-1970)3 Pigeons in the Street

gouache and chalk, 25.5 x 26 cms

exhibitedThe Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh, 1972, cat. 66

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Gordon Cameron, rsa (1916-1994)4 Flowers in a Black Jug, 1970

oil on canvas, 91 x 97 cmssigned lower right

exhibitedRoyal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh, 1970, cat. 157

Cameron was born in Aberdeenshire and attended Gray’s School of Art. In 1953 he joined the painting staff at Duncan of Jordanstone in Dundee, becoming a friend and colleague of Alberto Morrocco and David McClure. He lived at Invergordon and became known for recording village life and his own domestic interiors.

This freely painted, well-structured still life chimes well with the seventies work of his Dundee friends, but with its distinctive abstract background, including an unstretched canvas and subtle light source has its own, original sophistication.


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Robert Colquhoun (1914-1962)5 Head of Absalom, 1960

lithograph, 54 x 40.5 cmsedition 33/50 signed lower right; inscribed and signed on verso

provenanceEdinburgh printmakers

illustratedRoger Bristow, The Last Bohemians, Sansom & Co, Bristol, 2000, p. 207

“The bulk of the lithographs produced by Colquhoun and MacBryde were commissioned by Miller’s Press in the late 40s and early 50s. However, in 1960 the Roberts produced three lithographs, each published by the Curwen Press under the direction of the master printer Stanley Jones. Copies of all six are in the collection of the Tate Gallery. The other two Colquhouns are Two Horsemen and Mysterious Figures. A copy is also held by the Fry Art Gallery, Essex.” Davy Brown

In this print, Colquhoun captures the vanity of the regal figure of Absalom. A number of Jewish, or biblical subjects can perhaps be attributed to the influence of Jankel Adler.


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James Cowie, rsa (1886-1956)6 Self Portrait Study for The Blue Shirt, c.1937

pencil drawing, 19 x 19 cms

exhibitedFine Art Society, Edinburgh, 1992

literatureRichard Calvocoressi, James Cowie, National Galleries Scotland, 1974, p. 24

This drawing refers to a finished oil on canvas in the collection of The University of Edinburgh. In the oil painting Cowie references Poussin’s Inspiration of the Poet as the work behind his head. The French master was a painter Cowie admired for his carefully constructed compositions and unemotional approach to his subject. Interestingly in our drawing it is the Scottish painter Henry Lintott whose arcadian painting of sowers returning from the fields that hangs in the background chiming with Cowie’s own interest in the romantic landscape of his native Aberdeenshire. Sitting side on Cowie poses himself with a book or sketch pad open in his lap. He looks directly at the viewer, his intense stare captured with quick marks of his pencil.


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In this the centenary of his birth we are delighted to include a significant group of works by David Donaldson. He was one of the dominant personalities in the Scottish Art world in the latter half of the 20th Century. He was born in Lanarkshire and attended the School of Art in Glasgow before the War, completing a post-dip year in France and Italy before a final year back at the School. Deemed unfit for War Service he began to teach also and eventually succeeded Willie Armour as Head of School in 1967. The honours flowed throughout a full professional life including membership of the RSA and the position of Limner to Her Majesty in Scotland, having first painted Elizabeth II in 1966. He maintained a London portrait studio for many years and numbered Margaret Thatcher amongst his sitters. When not preoccupied with the portrait or running his department (which he did with wit, acerbity and élan) he painted and drew prolifically, using friends, family and models to populate subject pictures of a poetic or pseudo-religious content, as well as still life and landscape.

His extraordinary facility with paint (sometimes employed to ‘correct’ a student’s easel painting) gave his work an easy fluidity and the nervous energy in his drawing with a brush which marked him apart created a ‘School of Donaldson’, as his students aspired to emulate or exceed him. These attributes combined with a Renaissance master’s ability to see and set up his subject gave his best work grandeur and presence seldom equalled in Scottish painting. His friend and rival, Robin Philipson, could aspire to similar ambition with a very different approach and for thirty years the two rather dominated the corridors and studios of the Scottish art establishment. Donaldson’s legacy is still to be properly assessed, his portrait practice a barrier to contemporary reappraisal (no portrait painter has been deemed great since Raeburn after all) but his impact on the narrative of Scottish painting and the supreme quality of many of his individual works must be reckoned.

In his book, published less than a year before Donaldson died and based on an extended interview that carries all the wit and honesty of a man looking back on a life fully lived but not without regrets, W. Gordon Smith comments in conclusion:

“We forget that the true Scottish meaning of the word glamour is ‘charm upon the eyes’ – enchantment, witchery, by which they see things fairer than they are. Donaldson is in that sense a glamorous painter. He has the gift of necromancy. We see it in his adoration of women, in his soothsayer’s interpretation of allegory, in the way his paint can bring nature morte to such radiant life and how it invigorates and makes particular the landscape of Scotland and France.”

David Donaldson, rsa, rp, rgi, lld (1916-1996)7 Buisson, Provence, 1990

oil on canvas, 86.5 x 91.5 cmssigned lower right

illustratedW. Gordon Smith, David Donaldson, Mainstream Publishing, Edinburgh, 1996, pl. 88

Donaldson and his painter wife Marysia had a second home in the south of France where the landscape inspired his best exterior work. The sense of heat, sweeping lines, parched hill villages, vineyards and pale earth are captured brilliantly. The village with its distinctive skyline, which dates back to the Templars, sits above a valley, on the edge of the Vaucluse and is surrounded by vineyards.


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David Donaldson, rsa, rp, rgi, lld (1916-1996)8 Mountain Tent

pastel, 23.5 x 23.5 cmssigned lower centre

The enigmatic title allows the viewer to imagine an exotic journey. Tall guardian figures stand outside their pavilion in front of the high peaks of a mountain range which must represent their journey ahead.


David Donaldson, rsa, rp, rgi, lld (1916-1996)9 Farmland, Abeyron


exhibitedHazel Henghan Memorial Exhibition, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh, cat. 80; 50 Years of The Scottish Gallery at the Edinburgh Festival, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh, 1996, cat. 26

provenancePrivate Collection, Newcastle upon Tyne

The moment is dawn, bringing light and colour to the plane and pale stone towers of the village, which may well be Conques a medieval village to the north of the department.

David Donaldson, rsa, rp, rgi, lld (1916-1996)10 Miss Bess Cuthbert, 1963

oil on canvas, 75 x 126 cmssigned upper left

exhibitedRoyal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh, 1965, cat. 276; Royal Glasgow Institute; Seven Scottish Painters, IBM Gallery, New York, USA, 1965

provenancePrivate Collection, Stirlingshire; label for Hahn Brothers, Art Packers, New York verso

A Donaldson portrait is always original; arising out of clash of personalities of artist and sitter. In this work the demure girl has a look that combines the defiance and apprehension of her beauty and youth. She sits, isolated in a cool, dark, featureless interior. But the light source also picks out a flower in a glass, perfectly balancing the landscape format of the composition and echoing symbolically the delicate fragrance of the sitter.


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Philip Eglin (b.1959)11 Madonna and Child, c.1995

honey glaze earthenware, 38 x 21 x 18.5 cms

exhibitedPhilip Eglin, New Ceramics, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh, 1997, cat. 4

“I see myself as continuing a strong ceramic tradition of borrowing ideas, for both form and surface, from examples found in other media. I enjoy being flippant and subversive, making fusions of seemingly disparate historical and contemporary subjects in an attempt to achieve a balance between the high and the lowbrow, the reverent and the irreverent, the sophisticated and the crude.” Philip Eglin

Philip Eglin was born in Gibraltar in 1959. He trained at Staffordshire Polytechnic and the Royal College of Art, London, during which time he was a model and student of Eduardo Paolozzi. The full, dynamic range of artistic and expressive skill which flows from Eglin’s rich, eclectic and symbolic palette is apparent in all of his work. In 1996 he won the prestigious Jerwood Prize for ceramics. Philip Eglin’s next solo exhibition at The Scottish Gallery will be August 2017 as part of our 175th anniversary exhibitions. Madonna and Child is an early example of his Madonna series just prior to the artist winning the Jerwood Prize for Ceramics in 1996.

public collections includeVictoria & Albert Museum, London; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; National Museums Scotland, Edinburgh; Potteries Museum, Stoke-on-Trent, Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art; British Council


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Philip Eglin (b.1959)12 Looking for Mr and Mrs Andrews, 2013

press-moulded clay slabs with pre-applied images via slips, stencils, tissue transfers and hand painting; lead-glaze earthenware, coloured sheet transfers, kiln fired, 48 x 62 x 49 cms

“This piece forms part of a series of unabashed re-workings of Spode’s ‘Indian Sporting Series’. The titles refers to the Gainsborough painting Mr and Mrs Andrews where there are printed images of the painting incorporated within the piece. Also depicted are hunting scenes of designs produced in the early 19th century, which themselves were based on engravings already taken from paintings by the artist Samuel Howitt. The pictorial narratives involve colonial game hunters and their Indian entourage firing from elephant and horse-back, as they hunt tiger and boar within exotic landscapes.” Philip Eglin

Image courtesy of Marsden Woo, London

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JD Fergusson, rba (1874-1961)13 At the Paris Opera, 1906

ink and wash, 23 x 11 cmssigned and titled by Margaret Morris on verso

provenanceThe Fine Art Society, London, 1973; Dr James T. Ritchie, thence by descent


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JD Fergusson, rba (1874-1961)14 A Singer, Marquisita, 1925

watercolour, 25 x 20 cmssigned and titled on versoinscribed ‘Marquisita, 1925’ by Margaret Morris verso

provenanceJD Fergusson Art Foundation; Private Collection, Edinburgh

This sensuous portrait dates from the mid 1920s when Violet Marquisita was a London stage singer and Meg and Fergus divided their time between their flat in Callow Street, Paris and Antibes. The female form was perhaps Fergusson’s most important subject. He painted and drew women throughout his life, in the studio, in cafes and in streets, or in the sun drenched landscape of Le Midi. His images of women often represent fleeting moments of city life; in others they become vehicles for his interest in the Celtic Rhythm. Here Fergusson’s concern lies in capturing the character of the young woman in front of him. The economy of his line, emboldened by dense washes of watercolour produce a sensual portrait, whose dark eyes and vitality has not diminished 90 years on. During the reframing of the work Fergusson’s signature and inscription A Singer were discovered on the reverse of the painting.


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JD Fergusson, rba (1874-1961)15 The Mill, St Osyth, 1926

watercolour, 26 x 32 cmssigned on verso

Fergusson travelled a great deal in the twenties, based in London, Paris or in the summer at Cap d’Antibes when the Margaret Morris summer school took place at Eden Roc. St Osyth, near Clacton in Essex, was known for oyster beds and sea bathing two good reasons for Fergusson to make a visit.

The Old Mill, St Osyth, Clacton on Sea, 1932 © 2015 Derek Metson


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JD Fergusson, rba (1874-1961)16 The Conversation, c.1907

oil on panel, 26.5 x 33.5 cmssigned on verso, signed and titled on label verso

exhibitedExhibition of 20th Century British Paintings, National Gallery, London, 1940, cat. 358

provenanceCollection of J.W. Blyth, Kirkcaldy; Private Collection, London

This small panel is one of the most charming and significant early works to come on the market for many years. It belongs at the end of the artist’s early period in France, along with such images as Fireworks Dieppe and the cafe sketches, later published in a book by the artist’s widow. As an immaculately dressed bohemian Fergusson was able to move between the beau and demi mondes, and indeed Paris in these early years of the 20th Century was if not a classless society one in which the classes continuously intermingled. The beautifully turned out women in hats and long dresses, so beloved by Fergusson’s conté crayon, were more often milliners’ assistants on their lunch breaks than grand dames.

In The Conversation we are invited to speculate about the intimacies exchanged between the elegant women perched on seats at the pavement cafe while the waiter in his starched shirt, apron and heavy moustache is familiar to us all. The colour is subdued, Fergusson favours the evening as he seeks his subject, and his paint is beautifully modulated, each flick suggestive of form and movement.

Within a few months his emphasis shifts to a heavier touch, still essentially impressionistic, but with stronger colour and the figure typically less prominent.


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Ian Fleming, rsa, rsw (1906-1990)17 Haar, 1983

oil on board, 74 x 59 cmssigned lower right

exhibitedRoyal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh, 1983, cat. 146

The term haar is a word commonly associated with lands bordering the North Sea, primarily eastern Scotland and this delicate painting depicts the cold sea fog which makes its mystical appearance throughout the spring and summer. Haar depicts a city enveloped by the cool air turning the atmosphere opaque. Ian Fleming was a painter and printmaker who made a significant contribution to art education throughout his career, which included lecturing at Glasgow School of Art. He was Warden of Patrick Allen-Fraser Art College at Hospitalfield in Arbroath and he also became Principal of Gray’s School of Art, Aberdeen. He painted the double portrait of Robert Colquhoun and Robert MacBryde when they were students at Glasgow School of Art in the 1930s.


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William Gear, ra (1915-1997)18 Orange and Black Abstract, 1949

lithograph, 24.5 x 38 cmsedition 17/25signed lower right

provenanceBelgrave Gallery, St Ives; Bertram Arts, Somerset

After serving in WWII, William Gear lived and worked in Paris (1947-1950), where a number of other Scottish artists such as Eduardo Paolozzi, Alan Davie and Stephen Gilbert were also based. Gear would have come into contact with many of the leading post-war generation of Parisian artists at this time. In 1948 he held his first Paris and London solo exhibitions, and visited Terry Frost, Patrick Heron, Roger Hilton, Peter Lanyon and Bryan Winter in St Ives. He was also in contact with Karel Appel, Constant, Corneille, and Ager Jorn, and exhibited with the North European avant-garde CoBrA art group in Amsterdam (1949). In a busy year he also co-exhibited with Jackson Pollock in New York.

Orange and Black Abstract is a bold, dark and startling abstract; geometric shapes and abstracted tree forms makes a confident composition in conjunction with knowledge of the print making process to add depth and texture to the image.

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Sir William Gillies, cbe, rsa, ra, pprsw (1898-1973)19 Anstruther, 1923

oil on canvas, 34 x 44 cmssigned and dated lower left

exhibitedScottish Masters, The Scottish Gallery, Cork Street, London, 1999

provenanceLord Stoddart of Leaston; Private Collection, Liverpool

This is an example of Gillies’ early style, which will have been influenced by the painting he saw in France during his post diploma travels in 1923. The short impressionist brush marks capture the effect of evening light on the beached boats and water in the Fife harbour. Although his style was to change much in the coming years, his subject was to stay the same. He painted Anstruther and other East Neuk locations throughout his life.


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Sir William Gillies, cbe, rsa, ra, pprsw (1898-1973)20 Portmore, 1964

watercolour and pencil, 39 x 56 cmssigned lower right; signed and titled on label verso

exhibitedW.G. Gillies, Royal Scottish Academy and Scottish Arts Council Gallery, Edinburgh, 1970, cat. 210

provenanceJ.B. Dow Esquire, Edinburgh

Portmore lies one mile north of Eddleston in the Scottish Borders, on the slopes of the Moorfoot Hills. Here Gillies captures his subject in the evening light of a summer day; a drystane dyke ribbons its way across the picture plane and upwards toward to the expanse of the hills while the dying sun illuminates a copse of Rowan trees in the centre ground.


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Sir William Gillies, cbe, rsa, ra, pprsw (1898-1973)21 The Tweed Valley


exhibitedRoyal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh, 1972, cat. 370; The Edinburgh School – Works on Paper, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh, 2010, p. 17

provenanceMr. Glen Robbie; Private Collection, Liverpool

Parked up by the side of the road (on the A72 between Peebles and Galashiels), Gillies will have started this work in pencil, his quick marks plotting his composition, the watercolour to be added later.


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Sir William Gillies, cbe, rsa, ra, pprsw (1898-1973)22 Kippford, 1948

watercolour, 44 x 56 cms signed lower right

exhibitedSix Scottish Painters, Art Council Scottish Committee, Nottingham University, 1958

provenanceDr Robert A. Lillie Collection, cat. 14; Private Collection, Edinburgh


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The Earl Haig, obe, rsa (1918-2009)23 Rio di San Trovaso, c.1998

26.5 x 37 cms, watercoloursigned lower right

exhibited 80th Birthday Exhibition, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh, September, 1998

provenancePrivate Collection, Scottish Borders

“For many people the watercolours of Venice must be among the most attractive of all Haig’s works. Done with no regard to past precedent and no eye to the tourist market, they truly show Haig’s Venice (the title of his exhibition at The Scottish Gallery in 1991) and no other. His control of the medium in both watercolour and ink or sometimes pastel and their instant, fresh evocation of the scene show the result of decades of constant practice.” Douglas Hall, Haig The Painter, Atelier Books, Edinburgh, 2003, p. 57

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John Houston, obe, rsa, rsw (1930-2008)24 Landscape in Fife, 1961

oil on canvas, 71 x 91 cmssigned and dated lower right

provenanceFrom the Estate of Mr & Mrs McCallum, Edinburgh; Private Collection, London

This particular landscape illustrates John Houston’s early abstract expressionistic style of painting; the gestural mark making and impasto is typical of his work from this period.

“In its visual energy there is a sense of organic growth, of movement in the wind and the flurry and flutter of feeding birds.” William Packer, John Houston, Lund Humphries, 2003, p. 37


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Frances Macdonald (b.1945)25 Sea Fences, the North Shore at Calbha, 2014


exhibitedBeyond the Island of Storms, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh, 2014, ex.cat.

Having lived at Crinan for forty years, Frances Macdonald knows the land and intimately. But it is the Isle of Iona in particular which draws her back year on year; a short sail North West from Crinan, her husband Nick or son Ross are quite used to the commute.

Calbha Beach lies at the north end of Iona and was a favourite subject of SJ Peploe and FCB Cadell. Like the colourists, Macdonald finds delight in the juxtaposition of angular rock, electric blue sea and white sand. Her use of the palette knife creates a dynamism and animation in each painting while her assured marks depict the sea grasses, surf and rock with equal effect.


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Ellen Malcolm (1923-2003)26 Still Life

oil on board, 31.5 x 40 cms

provenanceLabel for R. Jackson and Sons, Liverpool; Private Collection, Liverpool

Malcolm like her future husband Gordon Cameron attended Gray’s School of Art before teaching in the city for some years. Latterly the two artists shared subjects and ideas as well as lives together and their work became close to indistinguishable. This painting from the sixties is close to a still life in the collection of the City of Edinburgh and owes something to Odilon Redon or Winifred Nicholson in the restraint and charm of its simple conception.


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James McBey (1883-1959)27 Sunset Wadi-Um-Mukhsheib, 1919

etching, 17.5 x 32.5 cmssigned and inscribed on plate lower right, signed in margin lower right

provenanceBourne Fine Art, Edinburgh

McBey was a self-taught painter and etcher born in Newburgh north of Aberdeen who went on to become one of the most successful artists of his generation. As the result of a few drawings made around Rouen and The Somme when he was employed with the Army Printing and Stationary Service he became an official war artist with the Egyptian Expeditionary Force, travelling from Gaza to Damascus in 1916-18. He produced over three hundred works most of which are in the Imperial War Museum. On his return to London he began to make etchings based on his drawings and experiences including his time with the Camel Corps patrols which enjoyed huge commercial success.

Sunset Wadi-Um-Mukhsheib depicts the end of day in the Egyptian Sinai, camels and figures resting as the shadows lengthen and the heat recedes; a fire has been lit around which the soldiers are gathered, while a lone sentinel stands by the two trees looking out across the featureless desert.


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David McClure, rsa, rsw (1926-1998)28 Blue Studio with Seated Girl, 1969

oil on canvas, 61.5 x 74 cmssigned lower right

provenancePrivate Collection, Edinburgh; Private Collection, Wiltshire

exhibitedPost War Scottish Masters, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh, 1985, cat. 100; Festival Exhibition, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh, 1969, cat. 14

The work of the French Post-Impressionists became a source of inspiration for the artist at various times in his career – Chagall, Gauguin, Redon and in this instance, Matisse. The subject of ‘The Model in a Studio’ has a long pedigree in European art and was one to which McClure often returned. The 1969 exhibition featured a number of these interiors, each with a different strong, single, flat background colour on which model and easel (with the painting she is sitting for on it) and various pieces of his studio and living-room furniture are arranged and composed. The larger chest on the left was painted by the artist inspired by his stay in Norway in 1963 and a visit to a museum of Folk Culture and Art. The chest on the right was given to him by Anne Redpath, after she herself was inspired by traditional French art and craft to decorate her own pieces of furniture, a nice reminder of their friendship and the influence she too had on his art in earlier years.


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David McClure, rsa, rsw (1926-1998)29 The Serpentine Fronted Table, 1958

oil on board, 76 x 61 cmssigned and dated lower right

provenanceThe David McClure Estate

Painted in Dundee the year after he was recruited by Alberto Morrocco to teach at the Art College there, this oil is a view of the hall table in the family home at Strawberry Bank. It can be seen as a ready-made still life and contains objects later used throughout his painting career in his more formal, composed studio still life work. McClure has been credited with bringing the ‘Edinburgh School’ colour and painterly handling to the college in Dundee and this freely painted work is a good example of bold, instinctive brushwork. Later he and Alberto were also to push daring colour to exciting extremes.


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James Morrison, rsa, rsw (b.1932)30 Arkle, 15.x.1999

oil on board, 34 x 44 cmssigned and dated lower right

exhibitedChristmas Exhibition, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh, 1999, cat. 109


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Denis Peploe, rsa (1914-1993)31 Berwick Law, Torness Power Station and the Bass Rock

oil on board, 11.5 x 13 cmssigned with initials lower left

exhibitedSea and Shore, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh, 1989, cat. 30

The landmarks are listed in the title as they appear, left to right, Torness being the first to be met driving back towards Edinburgh. On a tiny scale Peploe captures the majestic sweep of the view, freely painted in front of the subject, with typical bravura.


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Samuel John Peploe, rsa (1871-1935)32 Street Scene, c.1909

conté and watercolour, 21.5 x 14.5 cmssigned initials lower left

exhibitedSJ Peploe Exhibition, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh, 1947, cat. 97

Peploe drew throughout his life, regarding the exercise as essential. From the stump drawings he made at his time at the Trustees Academy, to the pastels of Jeannie Blyth and Newhaven fishwives, to the sketchbook records of street scenes in Cassis, or the rocks and dunes of the north end of Iona, thinking about painting; from the studio drawings of women, posed rapidly, clothed or nude to the quick observations of the street in both Paris and Edinburgh, he drew. These latter, made with conté and a little oil colour, were thought worthy of exhibition and many were sold in his lifetime and more from his widow in a show with The Scottish Gallery in 1947, so that occasionally they resurface.

This example, showing the economy with which he could capture his subject, depicts a sliver of street life: five figures in hats and coats (at the right the woman is in charge of a pram, the wheel, Degas-like, just indicated), are in the course of their business, unaware that they are being observed for perpetuity.


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Samuel John Peploe, rsa (1871-1935)33 Still Life with Patterned Cloth and Pink Rose, c.1918

oil on canvas, 40 x 45 cmssigned on versoPortrait of a Girl verso

provenanceThe late Theodora Hamm Lang of St Paul, Minnesota; Private Collection, London

A fair assumption with double sided canvasses is that the favoured side has come second and that it would be rare to then restretch the canvas to expose the first effort. The painting on the verso of our still life is a charming head portrait of a girl of perhaps twelve years of age painted using a restricted palette and a dry oil paint medium. The still life is quite different; colourful and flat, and it is tempting to put a much later date on it. The likelihood however is that the two works are quite close in date, perhaps around 1918, when Peploe painted some of his most brilliant still lifes, using both roses and tulips, but also a number of figure studies of a much cooler character like Girl in White Dress (Glasgow Museums).

Still Life with Patterned Cloth is of a schematic plan, with the emphasis on pattern and shape, creating a cloissonist effect – an attribute shared with Cadell still life of the years immediately after the War, like Still Life (The Gray Fan) (SNGMA) which incorporates a similar fan. There is some modelling of the orange and jug but the effect is a long way from the rustic, Cézannesque compositions of the latter War years.

What is without question is the success with which Peploe marries the elements of his design: volume, pattern, depth and balance, with a brilliant, harmonious colour scheme and allows the natural beauty of the roses to remain the focus of the composition.

Portrait of a Girl on verso


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Barbara Rae, cbe, ra, rsa, rgi, rsw (b.1943)34 Benaderreen Fields, 2002

mixed media on canvas, 183 x 214 cmssigned lower right

exhibitedAn tIarthar – the West, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh, 2003, cat. 1

provenancePrivate Collection, London

Barbara Rae has visited Ireland often and is drawn to its scenic beauty and the history of the country. Benaderreen, in County Mayo is a particular place of inspiration. The multi-coloured stripes of run-rig fields and dykes are captured in her signature gestural painterly manner. The geology and structure of the landscape is masterfully portrayed with her use of layered and built upon surfaces and vibrancy of colour palette, creating a glowing tapestry of rich colour and expressive energy.


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Barbara Rae, cbe, ra, rsa, rgi, rsw (b.1943)35 Single Almond – Cánãr, 2006

mixed media on handmade paper, 29.5 x 33 cmssigned lower right

exhibitedSierra, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh, 2006, cat. 27

provenancePrivate Collection, Liverpool

This painting was included in an exhibition of work inspired by Barbara Rae’s visits to the Alpujarra mountain range of Granada in Southern Spain.

“Ancient olive groves, almond trees and long tended vineyards clinging to precipitous slopes are transformed into paintings of brilliant colour and inspired design.” Professor Duncan Rice for Sierra exhibition catalogue, 2006


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Barbara Rae, cbe, ra, rsa, rgi, rsw (b.1943)36 Whipple Point, 2000

mixed media on handmade paper, 28.5 x 37.5 cms signed lower right

exhibitedWest, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh, 2000, ex. cat.

provenancePrivate Collection, Liverpool


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Duncan Shanks, rsa, rsw, rgi (b.1937)37 Beacon O Fire


provenancePrivate Collection, London

This painting is of Tinto, a rugged hill on Lanarkshire’s southern horizon near to Duncan Shanks’ home. As it stands apart from the main Southern Upland range, the hill commands marvellous views from its ridges, and has been the subject of many Shanks paintings over the years.

Beacon O Fire is an evocative title, and suggests great energy and passion. Tinto has been called the ‘Hill of Fire’ and this painting is ablaze with colour and crackling marks. Many ancient rituals and religious beliefs relate to the hill; fire played a significant part in the main Druid festivals and they were said to have lit fires on the hill in honour of the Sun God, Baal.


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Adam Bruce Thomson, obe, rsa, pprsw (1885-1976)38 Wester Ross, Mountains and Loch, c.1970


exhibitedPainting the Century, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh, 2013, cat. 72

provenanceStudio inventory number (W129); Private Collection, Liverpool

Adam Bruce Thomson often travelled with his family to the West Coast during the summer holidays from Edinburgh College of Art, frequently meeting up with his friend from student days David Macbeth Sutherland.

William Gillies, although slightly younger than Bruce Thomson and Sutherland, became a lifelong friend; both had taught Gillies at the College before and after WWI, Gillies later joining the staff in 1925 and also worked several times in the North West. A similar watercolour by Bruce Thomson is in the Royal Collection.


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Geoff Uglow (b.1978)39 Mary Queen, 2013

oil on board, 61 x 51 cmssigned on verso

exhibitedNext Year’s Buds, the Last Year’s Seed, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh, 2014, cat. 8

For the last few years Geoff Uglow has been concerned with the image of the oak tree, inspired by a tree on his brother’s farm near Launceston in Cornwall. He sees it as “a majestic but modest thing, a presence, which spanning many generations hardly changes in one.” Although tending towards abstraction, Uglow’s painting is a visual response to the landscape in front of him. The gestural approach to his subject removes the temptation to understand the tree as a representational image, and instead consider it as a symbol for the universal.


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William Wilson, obe, rsa, rsw (1905-1972)40 Fife Harbour, 1945

watercolour and bodycolour, 37.5 x 49.5 cmssigned and dated lower right

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

Published by The Scottish Gallery to coincide with the exhibition MODERN MASTERS V6 – 30 January 2016

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

ISBN: 978 1 910267 31 8

Designed by www.kennethgray.co.ukPhotography by William Van EslandPrinted by Barr Colour Printers

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.

Right: Robert Colquhoun, Head of Absalom, 1960, lithograph, 54 x 40.5 cms (detail) (cat. 5)


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