Lot 152
JOHN DUNCAN FERGUSSON R.B.A. (SCOTTISH 1874-1961) §
BOULEVARD MONTPARNASSE, PARIS
£47,700
Scottish Paintings & Sculpture
Auction: Evening Sale | Lots 103-196 | Thursday 05 December from 6pm
Description
Signed, inscribed and dated 1907 on the reverse, inscribed with title on Fergusson's own label verso, oil on board
Dimensions
28cm x 35.5cm (11in x 14in)
Provenance
Exhibited: Lyon & Turnbull, London and Glasgow, A Scottish Colourist at 150: J. D. Fergusson, February-March 2024
Footnote
John Duncan Fergusson decided to move from Edinburgh to Paris in 1907 and was to live in the French capital for the next six years. His future wife, the dance pioneer Margaret Morris, later explained: ‘He settled in Paris, having sold all his possessions in Scotland except the sofa, made to his design – this, he had sent to Paris, where he could always sleep on it before he got a bed. First he stayed at the Haute Loire Hotel in Montparnasse, while he looked for a studio, which he eventually found at 18 Boulevard Edgar Quinet…Fergusson fully appreciated what a wonderful period of modern art he had dropped into in Paris. Soon he met Bourdelle, Friesz and Pascin at the Salon d’Automne and became one of what he described as a very happy group.’ (Margaret Morris, ‘Introduction’ in ed. Jean Geddes, Café Drawings in Edwardian Paris from the Sketch-books of J. D. Fergusson 1874-1961, Blackie, Glasgow, 1974, p.5)
Fergusson exclaimed that Paris was ‘simply a place of freedom’ and painted Boulevard Montparnasse, Paris not long after settling in the city. The neighbourhood was replacing Montmartre as the main artists’ quarter and Fergusson took to its cafés and bars with social aplomb. The Cafés Rotonde, Dôme and Closerie des Lilas were all along the Boulevard Montparnasse and Fergusson and his intimates became regular customers at all three. The boulevard was also a short walk away from the Luxembourg Gardens, where Fergusson could see the work of living artists on display at the Musée du Luxembourg.
This painting comes from a series of vibrant street scenes in which Fergusson’s excitement about his new surroundings and the impact of contemporary avant-garde French painting is clear. He revelled in the depiction of the city’s architecture and citizens going about daily life, whilst his brushwork became bolder, his forms became simpler and his palette became brighter. Here, robustly realised trees in shadow give way to brightly lit bustling activity and on to a high façade, which itself gives way to a dazzling sky.
Only two years later, Fergusson was elected a member of the cutting-edge Salon d’Automne in recognition of his contribution to the modern movement. Fergusson declared ‘to me, considering myself a revolutionary, this was a very great honour and…it had the effect of confirming my feeling of independence, the greatest thing in the world, not merely in art but in everything.’ (quoted in Kirsten Simister, Living Paint: J. D. Fergusson 1874-1961, Mainstream Publishing, Edinburgh, 2001, p.39)
Further examples of Fergusson’s contemporary Parisian street scenes can be found in the collections of Perth Art Gallery, Manchester Art Gallery and the Royal Academy of Music, London.
