SAMUEL JOHN PEPLOE R.S.A. (SCOTTISH 1871-1935) ◆
OLIVE TREES, CASSIS
£93,750
Scottish Paintings & Sculpture
Auction: Evening Sale: 09 December 2021 | From 18:00
Description
Signed, oil on panel
Dimensions
31.5cm x 41cm (12.5in x 16in)
Provenance
Provenance: Baillie Gallery, London 1914, no.6
The Fine Art Society Ltd, Edinburgh, August 1976, no.7159
The Collection of the late R. L. MacDonald
Footnote
Note: Peploe painted Olive Trees, Cassis during a key period spent working beside fellow Scottish Colourist J. D. Fergusson in the titular French port during the summer of 1913. Having moved back to Edinburgh from Paris the year before, the trip allowed Peploe to re-immerse himself in the world of avant-garde French art and Mediterranean sunshine. The brilliance of colour in this painting, its hard-edged form - realised in blunt brushstrokes - and the bold positioning of the foremost tree, reveal an understanding of and experimentation with the work of Fauve and Rhythmist artists who made their names in pre-war Paris.
Olive Trees, Cassis was included in Peploe’s solo exhibition at the Baillie Gallery in London in 1914, which cemented his reputation as one of the leading British artists of his generation. The accompanying press coverage declared him to be a 'Post-Impressionist' with The Studio's critic describing him as 'an artist whose head is stronger than the theories he has embraced...he gets the best out of them, gaining from what licence for freedom of line and abandonment to colour he may require, but preserving always evidence of contact with life...retaining vitality and the power to convince.' ('Studio-talk', The Studio, vol. 61, 1914, p. 232)