The Colourist

The Colourist

Peploe had an extraordinary sensitivity to colour – he may have been tetrachromatic. The complementary nature of colour, the tonal values of different colours, the infinite possibilities afforded by mixing paints – this was his lifelong obsession. He became able to push the value of a particular colour beyond naturalism without abandoning the immediate truth of his subject. This shift can be compared to the develoment from Impressionism to Expressionism embodied in the work of Matisse and Derain who became known as the Fauves – wild beasts – for their work in Collioure and elsewhere from 1905. Twenty years before, Gauguin and Van Gogh made a similar shift, using colour to direct emotional effect to expose the intensity of their response to subject, starry night or Tahitian forest. Peploe’s moment of transformation happened in 1910, in Royan.

Peploe married Margaret Mackay on 5th April 1910 at the Morningside Registry Office. They had decided to move to Paris and would break the journey at Broadway in the Cotswolds. He had written a month before: ‘I see the train leaves at 10.15. That is the only morning train and the next is 2.00 o’clock which is too late. Shall we need to get married at 8.00 o’clock in the morning; why not? Before breakfast.’ The move had long been urged by J. D. Fergusson, already living in Montparnasse, but the immediate spur was Margaret’s pregnancy. They set up home in a tiny studio apartment at 278 Boulevard Raspail but by August had joined Fergusson and Anne Estelle Rice in Royan in the Charente. Willy was born on 29th August. Royan was a grand resort on the north of the Gironde estuary with a port cut into the limestone cliff. Four beaches known as conches alternate with stone promontories to the north, with La Grande Conche to the south: a magnificent curving beach with trees behind and, in 1910, a little railway to move the tourists along. The huge Second Empire Casino Municipale dominated the promenade and many other fine civic buildings and hotels made it a resort to rival any in Europe with a huge influx of summer visitors. Hundreds of bright, striped sun shelters could be rented as well as mobile beach huts.

The couple were joined in the Charente by Fergusson and his American artist partner Anne Estelle Rice. These were the happiest of times and for Peploe the work flowed out: brilliantly coloured paintings on artist-panels, bought from the Paris American Art Co. in Montparnasse. His subjects were the promenade and harbour of the resort, the seafront casino and streets of holiday homes behind the front; his palette: brilliant cadmium orange, yellow and red, Prussian blue – all straight from the tube and white for the high tones of the Atlantic summer. His impasto was generous, worked with the extraordinary dexterity he had developed in his practice, as if all had been a preparation for this moment of revelation and joy – the way of colour. The work Peploe made here can now be seen as thoroughly Modernist: the palette is bold and, like the Fauves at Collioure four years before, he moves away from naturalism to push colour as a direct, emotional tool no doubt reflecting the freedom and excitement he felt as his life moved into a new sphere. The Royan pictures of the harbour and streets of villas behind the front, images of the Paris parks, and those made in Brittany

the following summer can be seen together as one of the great engagements made by a British artist with French Modernism. Light is no longer a dissolving form and instead a new structure is sought: natural forms are simplified and non-naturalistic colour preferred. These were the works that would be initially rejected by the dealers and collectors who had been his patrons but Peploe was not for turning, and the balance of his life as a painter looks forward, never back.

When Guy Peploe visited Royan before writing his biography in 2000 he expected to experience the resort as it had been in Edwardian times; but alas the town had been destroyed by allied bombing, becoming known as ‘the martyred city.’ Over 2,700 civilians were killed between British and American raids, the Americans finally destroying the entire town with napalm. It was rebuilt in the fifties with little charm visible in its modernist homogeneity. But at least the light and colour were still there.

“These outstanding works are also the culmination of Peploe’s work as an Impressionist. It is however an impressionism that has come a long way from the influence of William McTaggart or Alfred Sisley evident in the early years of the century… Instead Peploe seeks to find in his painted surface a direct equivalent to his subject, harnessing the power of light to make colour vibrate; to make permanent the compelling beauty he saw in a marina, street or promenade.”

It is not surprising that the curators of the International Fauvism exhibition at the Musee d’Art Moderne in 2000 selected a wall of Peploe and Fergusson’s Royan panels. Above: a note from André Dezarrois to S. J. Peploe, 1931 Translation: “Thank you sir for your kind letter. The Scottish Exhibition was excellent and the works you sent were particularly interesting. I am delighted with the two pictures the Musée du Louvre have bought. My best compliments, AD.”

André Dezarrois is a significant figure in the history of French art. He was Director of the contemporary art magazine La Revue de l’Art and later became Director of Foreign Art at the new Jeu de Paume when it opened its doors to the public in 1933. In the 1920s and 30s public feeling still swayed toward traditional French painting. It was Dezarrois and a number of others who realised the existence of a significant foreign presence living and working in Paris that was not being recognized by the French State. Dezarrois heralded a change throughout the 1930s by organising exhibitions of foreign artists who were living and working in Paris. Exhibitions he organised included Picasso, Matisse, Kandinsky, Miro, Klee and Magritte. He was also responsible for buying foreign art for the French national collection, and bought two S. J. Peploes from Les Peintres Ecossais at Galerie Georges Petit in 1931.

Fergusson in his Paris studio, c.1910, © The Fergusson Gallery, Perth & Kinross Council

Sam, Margaret and Willy in Paris, c.1910 J. D. Fergusson and S. J. Peploe, Paris Plage, c.1907

Anne Estelle Rice, S. J. Peploe, Willy, J. D. Fergusson, Cassis, 1913

J. D. Fergusson, Margaret and Willy Peploe, c.1913

Margaret Morris’s Summer School, 1924, Cap d’Antibes

Margaret, Sam and Willy, Cassis 1924 Merle Taylor, Sam, Denis and Margaret Peploe, Jessie M. King and Willy Peploe at La Rotonde, Paris, c.1921

S. J. Peploe at Cassis, 1924

5. Paris Plage, c.1907 oil on panel, 34 x 39 cm signed on verso

Provenance: The Fine Art Society, London; The Frank and Lorna Dunphy Collection, London

Le Touquet-Paris-Plage is a resort on the Normandy coast which has endured as a tourist destination since it was founded in 1876 by Hippolyte de Villemessant, the owner of Le Figaro. The land was bought by an Englishman in 1903 and it became as fashionable in London as it did in Paris, with golf courses and a racecourse being added to the splendid architecture which characterizes the seafront. At the northern end the river Canche disgorges into the Channel and from there miles of beach stretch to the south. There is an immense tidal reach and so huge capacity for the holidaymaker to sit, exercise or bathe. Peploe began to visit in the early years of the century, often with his friend J. D. Fergusson. They both painted a variety of subjects including the view across the sand towards the sea, and a horizon often lost in haze so that the subject, devoid of its holidaymakers as dawn or dusk, could be almost abstract and without features. Through one hundred and eighty degrees the view could not be in more contrast: the traffic of the streets, colourful bathing tents and fashionable denizens of the grand hotels and casinos taking their afternoon promenade are described in flurries of paint. By 1907 Peploe was approaching the limit of his engagement with Impressionism and the freedom and fluidity of his marks are astonishing and indeed in great contrast to the short ‘touche’ deployed by Sisley or Monet.

Luxembourg Gardens, Paris, c.1910 oil on panel, 27 x 35 cm signed lower right

Exhibited: Modern Masters VIII, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh, 2018, cat. 27

Provenance: The Artist’s family and thence by descent; Private collection Illustrated: S. J. Peploe by Guy Peploe, Lund Humphries, 2012, pl.108

Peploe moved to Paris in the spring of 1910, as the city was recovering from the catastrophic flooding in January. The unhealthiness of the city was no doubt a good reason for Sam and Margaret, then heavily pregnant with their first child, to move to Royan in the Charente where Willy was born in August. The panels (all acquired from the Paris American Art Co. in Montparnasse) which the artist painted in the summer and autumn are full of optimism reflecting his happiness and perhaps a sense of liberation in his final commitment to wife and family. This energy and freedom is also tangible in the works made in Paris on the family’s return to the tiny studio apartment at 278 Boulevard Raspail. Long considered to be of the south of France, but now positively identified as The Luxembourg Gardens, this painting is one of the most powerful examples of Peploe’s short, Fauvist period: the time is dusk, the sky a livid yellow but the sense of heat is palpable as figures sit in the shade of the dramatic canopy of the palms; in the background high trees partially mask the profile of the palace roof. Luxembourg Gardens, Paris is painted with strong, directional marks, its angularities, brilliant colour and rich impasto are strong statements of confidence from an artist entirely at one with himself and his objectives.

Royan, c.1910

Street Scene, France, c.1911 oil on board, 34.3 x 26.8 cm

Provenance: Private collection

Illustrated: Cover Illustration, The Scottish Colourists, Philip Long, SNGMA, 2000; S. J. Peploe by Guy Peploe, Lund Humphries, 2012, pl.80

6. Royan Harbour, c.1910 oil on board, 27 x 34.9 cm signed lower right and verso

Provenance: Mme Marie Marguerite Soulie, Paris, (wife of author Arnold Bennett), thence by direct descent

In Royan Harbour, Peploe has chosen the aspect looking from the broad promenade down the harbour walls which enclose the marina. Tourists move down the slipway to the boats in the anchorage; the lighthouse is visible at the end of a further breakwater over which is seen the turquoise lateen sale of a yacht. Reds and blues indicate buildings on the far side of La Grande Conche. His palette is jewel-like: sapphire, ruby and pearl with the characteristic zingy orange notes which play through all the Royan pictures.

Royan Harbour, c.1910

Royan, 1910 oil on board, 26.7 x 35.5 cm signed verso

Illustrated: S. J. Peploe by Guy Peploe, Lund Humphries, 2012, front cover and pl.75

7. The Mouth of the Harbour, 1910 oil on board 26.2 x 35 cm signed lower left and verso

Exhibited: The Scottish Colourists, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh, 2016, cat. 24

Provenance: Major Ion Harrison; Alex Reid & Lefevre, Glasgow; Fine Art Society, London and Glasgow, 1980

The Mouth of the Harbour comes from the collection of Ion Harrison, a Glasgow shipping magnate and the preeminent collector of the Colourists. He had several Royan pictures, recognising their significance in the artist’s oeuvre and British painting. These panels were some of the works Peploe brought back to Edinburgh in 1911, home to try to raise the funds to support the family in Paris. Writing to Margaret after he had unpacked he ‘felt like a millionaire’ and went on to say, “I am awfully satisfied with these Royan sketches. My old stuff was getting loose and chaotic. I really think I am getting somewhere better… I have no further interest in my old things – beautiful but limited. I must make others feel the same.”

The inner harbour at Royan is tidal; dry at low tide. In this picture the artist sits on the promenade looking across to the lighthouse at the end of the breakwater. The sun is setting, suffusing the sky, sea and sand with soft rainbow colours. The light from the lighthouse is reflected in five yellow marks across the low water. Three boats offer visual interest and colour in the sails, real and reflected. Greens, mauve and pink recall earlier choices, for example The White Dress (cat. 4), but are intensified.

Royan, 1910 oil on board, 26.7 x 35.5 cm signed lower right

Exhibited: S. J. Peploe, National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh, 2012

Provenance: Private collection

Illustrated: S. J. Peploe by Guy Peploe, Lund Humphries, 2012, pl.77; S. J. Peploe, National Galleries of Scotland, 2012, pl.41

Île-de-Bréhat, Brittany, 1911 oil on canvas board, 33 x 40.5 cm signed lower right

Exhibited: S. J. Peploe, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, 1985, cat.55; New Acquisitions, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh, January 2007, cat.3; S. J. Peploe: Scotland’s First Modernist, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh, 2012

Provenance: Private collection

Illustrated: S. J. Peploe by Guy Peploe, Lund Humphries, 2012, pl.87

Peploe visited the Île-de-Bréhat in the summer of 1911. It is a small island three kilometres off the north Brittany coast, not far from the fishing village of Paimpol. The island is reached by a fishing boat ferry, has one hotel and a few holiday cottages. Peploe made perhaps only a half-dozen works here, all on the larger canvas boards bought from the Paris American Art Co. in Montparnasse, and which he used again in Cassis in 1913. These few works are an advance from the previous year in Royan. The solid, four-square buildings and rocks lend themselves well to a more structured treatment than the marina and seafront of Royan while the brilliant oranges of Royan are now tempered by intense, maritime aquamarines.