Lot 140
JOHN DUNCAN FERGUSSON R.B.A. (SCOTTISH 1887-1961) §
GLOXINIA
Scottish Paintings & Sculpture
Auction: Evening Sale ft. A Century of Scottish Colourists | Lots 88 to 168 | Thursday 04 June 2026 from 6pm
Description
Brass
Dimensions
18cm x 14.5cm x 10cm (7.25in x 5.75in x 4in)
Footnote
John Duncan Fergusson is the only one of the four artists known as the Scottish Colourists, along with F. C. B. Cadell, G. L. Hunter and S. J. Peploe, to have worked in three dimensions. Indeed, he made sculpture over some 50 years, with his first created in Paris in 1908 and the last thought to date from about 1955.
As Alice Strang has explained: ‘Experiments in terracotta in 1909 and clay in 1913, led to direct carving in stone outdoors during the First World War. Carving wood and plaster, which he sometimes cast and coloured, followed. Works were cast in brass and bronze as funds permitted.’ (Alice Strang et al, J. D. Fergusson, National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh, 2013, p.21) The importance of this aspect of Fergusson’s oeuvre is clear in the inclusion of sculptures in many of his exhibitions between 1912 and 1948.
Gloxinia is thought to have been conceived in the 1930s and cast at a later date. The organic forms of the titular orchid are realised via voluptuous modelling which verges on the abstract. It explores one of the most important themes in Fergusson’s work, that of Henri Bergson’s theory of the élan vital or life force, that Fergusson identified in the abundance, sensuality and fecundity inherent in nature. His painting, Gloxinias and Fuschias of 1938, is in the collection of Culture Perth and Kinross, as is a further cast of the Gloxina sculpture, which can be seen in the current Fergus and Meg: A Creative Partnership display at Perth Art Gallery.