Scottish Colourist Collection
The Wood Collection of Scottish Colourists
The Wood Collection is one of the most important single groups of Colourist paintings to come on to the market in recent years.
Following on from the seminal Wemyss Honeyman sale of 1979 and the hugely successful Drambuie Collection, sold by Lyon and Turnbull in 2006, the unveiling of the Wood Collection was a hugely significant moment. We were proud to announce that this collection would be offered in our Scottish Paintings & Sculpture auction on 09 June 2016 - lots 51 to 63
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FRANCIS CAMPBELL BOILEAU CADELL R.S.A., R.S.W. (SCOTTISH 1883-1937)
STILL LIFE OF ROSES
Sold for £434,500 (inclusive of buyer's premium)
The paintings were purchased between the 1920s and the 1940s by the Edinburgh collector Walter Quarry Wood, President of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, with the advice of Duncan Macdonald of the renowned dealers Alex Reid and Lefevre and hung for many years in his family’s residence in the city’s New Town.
The highlights of the collection are undoubtedly several paintings by FCB Cadell, with whom the Wood family had a personal connection.
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FRANCIS CAMPBELL BOILEAU CADELL R.S.A., R.S.W. (SCOTTISH 1883-1937)
ROINA IN THE SOUND OF MULL | Signed, and inscribed on a label verso, oil on board | 38cm x 46cm (15in x 18in)
Exhibited: Royal Scottish Academy Festival Exhibition 1949, Peploe, Cadell & Hunter
Sold for £98,500 (inclusive of buyer's premium)
Cadell’s two outstanding Iona paintings Sandbank and the Sound of Mull and Roina in the Sound of Mull reflect his spiritual attachment to the holy island, which he visited frequently from 1920 until his death, often in the company of his lifelong friend SJ Peploe. It is thus particularly fitting that these works should be complemented by an equally important painting by Peploe of Iona Abbey, painted in the 1920s from the high ground above the church. The maritime theme is further echoed in Leslie Hunter’s evocative image of Boats in Harbour.
GEORGE LESLIE HUNTER (SCOTTISH 1879-1931)
BOATS IN HARBOUR | Signed, oil on panel | 25.5cm x 35.5cm (10in x 14in)
Sold for £12,500 (inclusive of buyer's premium)
Peploe’s vital attachment to the South of France is also present here, in an important, typically pale-toned study of trees in a landscape, painted in Cassis in 1928 and inscribed by the artist’s wife.
SAMUEL JOHN PEPLOE R.S.A. (SCOTTISH 1871-1935)
TREE STUDY CASSIS
Signed. Inscribed and dated verso 'This was painted at Cassis 1928' written by Mrs Peploe 1948, oil on canvas | 41cm x 46cm (16in x 18in)
Sold for £62,500 (inclusive of buyer's premium)
The Colourists excelled at still life painting and the Wood collection contains no less than five major examples of their work in this genre. Alongside the contrasting tones of GL Hunter’s Still Life of Roses and Fruit, sits Cadell’s exuberant and painterly Still Life of Roses, while one of the best known paintings in the collection is surely the same artist’s magisterial The Wedgwood Vase, widely exhibited in major Colourist exhibitions between 1928 and 2011.
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FRANCIS CAMPBELL BOILEAU CADELL R.S.A., R.S.W. (SCOTTISH 1883-1937)
THE WEDGWOOD VASE
Signed, signed and inscribed verso, oil on canvas
46cm x 38cm (18in x 15in)
Exhibited: Society of Eight 1928, no.64; National Gallery of Scotland, Memorial Exhibition 1942, no.131; Fine Art Society, Centenary Exhibition 1983, no.57; National Gallery of Modern Art, F.C.B.Cadell, 2011
Sold for £290,500 (inclusive of buyer's premium)
The collection is completed with two outsanding Peploe still lifes. Still Life of Tulips in a Vase and the similarly sized Still Life of Roses in a Green Vase present superb examples of the artist’s softer, late style of the early 1930s.
SAMUEL JOHN PEPLOE R.S.A. (SCOTTISH 1871-1935)
STILL LIFE OF TULIPS IN A VASE
Signed, oil on canvas, with a portrait of a lady verso | 51cm x 41cm (20in x 16in)
Sold for £116,500 (inclusive of buyer's premium)