SAMUEL JOHN PEPLOE R.S.A. (SCOTTISH 1871-1935)
FIRS AT THE MASSIF DES CALANQUES, CASSIS
Estimate: £80,000 - £120,000
Scottish Paintings & Sculpture
Auction: Evening Sale | Lots 111- 206 | Thursday 05 June from 6pm
Description
Signed, oil on canvas
Dimensions
51cm x 61cm (20in x 24in)
Provenance
James Hay Gauldie (1872-1956) and thence by descent to the present owners
Exhibited:
Kirkcaldy Museum & Art Gallery, Second Inaugural Loan Exhibition, July - August 1928 (as ‘Landscape, Cassis, France’)
The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh, Memorial Exhibition of Paintings by S. J. Peploe R.S.A., 1936, no.52 (as ‘Cassis’)
The Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh, Festival Exhibition: S. J. Peploe R.S.A, F. C. B. Cadell R.S.A and Leslie Hunter, 25 August - 17 September 1949, no. 39 (incorrectly titled ‘Antibes’)
Footnote
Firs at the Massif des Calanques, Cassis by S. J. Peploe dates from the third of four trips he made to the French port during a period of over twenty-five years, such was the inspiration it provided for him and for his fellow Scottish Colourists J. D. Fergusson and F. C. B. Cadell. His first was in the company of Fergusson in 1913. Having moved back to Edinburgh after spending the years 1910 to 1912 in Paris, this visit allowed Peploe to re-immerse himself in the world of avant-garde French art and Mediterranean sunshine. On his return in 1924, this time with Cadell, he happily wrote to his wife Margaret ‘Cadell and I get on very well and play billiards at night…or go down to the Liautaud [Hotel] for a drink…Cadell works away in his bedroom persistently.’ (quoted in Guy Peploe, S. J. Peploe 1871-1935, Mainstream Publishing, Edinburgh, 2000, pp.68-69) In 1928, during which stay the present work was made, Peploe came to Cassis after painting with fellow Colourist Leslie Hunter in Antibes, further east along the Côte d’Azur. Peploe’s final period of time in Cassis was from Easter until the early summer of 1930.
Peploe enjoyed a practice based on working en plein air as well as in a studio. Trees, forests and woods are a mainstay subject of the former strand in his oeuvre and he was drawn to them in locations as varied as Antibes, Cassis, Kirkcudbrightshire and the Scottish Highlands; the windy weather on his beloved Iona prevents the growth of trees on the island. The expressive potential of trees, their trunks, branches and leaves, whether singular or growing in groups, provided Peploe with an endless variety of form and character with which to connect with nature and to establish a sense of place.
In the present painting, the artist’s enjoyment of the arabesque curving of the trunks is akin to his depiction of tulip stems in the celebrated still lifes of the late 1910s and early 1920s. The brilliance of the Riviera sunshine is emphasised by the deep shadows cast across bark and ground, whilst the trunk at the very foreground at the lower right hints at the continuation of the scene beyond the confines of the canvas. The Calanques National Park is an area of outstanding natural beauty, known for its ‘majestic cliffs, endless sea…[and]…exceptional flora and fauna’ (Cassis Tourist Office website).
The importance of Peploe’s paintings of trees in the region of Cassis was made plain in the acquisition of La forêt for the French national collection from the landmark exhibition Les Peintres Ecossais: S. J. Peploe, J. D. Fergusson, Leslie Hunter, F. C. B. Cadell, Telfer Bear, R. O. Dunlop, held at the Galeries Georges Petit in Paris in March 1931. (Centre Pompidou, acc.no.JP 527 P). Firs at the Massif des Calanques, Cassis was included in the Memorial Exhibition of Peploe’s work mounted by The Scottish Gallery in Edinburgh in 1936, the year after the artist’s death. It was also selected for the Royal Scottish Academy’s landmark Festival Exhibition of the work of Peploe, Hunter and Cadell in 1949, which was the first time the three artists had been shown together in a public gallery and in the country of their birth. Incorrectly titled ‘Antibes’, a hand annotated copy of the exhibition catalogue in the archive of the National Galleries of Scotland notes ‘A. R. Sturrock R S A says this is a very fine picture.’ It was one of forty-four works by Peploe on display and was lent by James Hay Gauldie. Paintings of trees from the 1928 Cassis trip are held in the collections of the City Art Centre, Edinburgh and Kirkcaldy Galleries.