John Duncan Fergusson, R.B.A.

Collection of Margaret Morris;
Duncan R. Miller Fine Arts, London

Glasgow, Duncan R. Miller Fine Arts in association with Barclay Lennie, The Scottish Colourists, 1991 (details untraced);
Edinburgh, Bourne Fine Art and London, The Fine Art Society, J.D. Fergusson in France, April-May 2004, no.7;
London, Duncan R. Miller Fine Arts, J. D. Fergusson: The Scottish Colourists, 2011, no.34

The canvas has not been lined. There are some areas of very minor craquelure, visible only upon close inspection, these appear stable. There is some horizontal craquelure to the upper stretcher edge, again only visible upon close inspection. Otherwise the work appears to be in generally good overall condition with a richly textured surface.UV light inspection reveals some spots of fluorescence in the figure's torso which could possibly be flecks of retouching or just the artist's original pigment.Held in a gilt plaster frame.
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The present work depicts a woman standing amongst rocks, one arm raised and draped languidly across her forehead. Movement is suggested; a cool breeze rippling the greenery, the figure’s artful posture and tilted hips. Whilst the figure is clothed, the material of her dress appears diaphanous and the viewer may observe the outline of her thigh and breasts by way of the fall of light across her body. Her curves are mirrored in the bowed pines which surround but are thrown into sharp relief by angular rocks and Fergusson’s linear brushwork. Whilst not as abrupt a stare as in later portraits, we are certainly observed by the figure, who looks out from amongst the rocks and trees to meet the viewer’s gaze. Looking beyond, the blue of the Mediterranean can be glimpsed through the foliage but Fergusson’s use of colour, in keeping with his European counterparts, renders the scene a carefully woven tapestry of hues rather than adding any depth of perspective. The result is strangely energetic considering the pace of daily life in Antibes, leaving Amongst the Rocks, Cap d’Antibes a significant example of the main inspiration for Fergusson’s painting whilst in the South of France: rhythm.

Dance had become truly avant-garde in the early Twentieth Century with Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes avidly consumed by the populations of Paris and other major European cities. Fergusson and Peploe were in regular attendance, and the performances invoked a modernism brought to life by rhythm and movement. Whilst Paris first seized the young artist’s imagination with its bustling artistic salons and performances, the present work, along with comparable oils such as Bather, Cap d’Antibes (Sold in these rooms, 18 November 2015, lot 32) and On Juan Plage (Sold in these rooms, 26 April 2007, lot 100), show how Fergusson’s true artistic expression and achievement was only realised upon his travels to the South of France. Fergusson first visited Cap d’Antibes in 1913. It was here amongst dappled sunlight, white sands and ragged rocks that his exploration of the female form, a subject which he considered the embodiment of modern and liberated values, was able to flourish.

It is likely that the picture depicts the artist’s wife Margaret Morris, a pioneer of the modern dance style made popular by Isadora Duncan. It is significant that the painting remained in her private collection as a poignant symbol of the synergy between Fergusson’s art and her innovative ideas about movement and dance. Fergusson and Morris first met in Paris in 1913, the same year in which Fergusson moved to Antibes. After studying classical Greek movement with Raymond Duncan, at the age of nineteen Morris established her own dance school in Chelsea. In 1913, Morris took her troupe to perform at the Marigny theatre on the corner of Avenue des Champs-Elysées and Avenue Marigny. In her own words; ‘armed with an introduction I presented myself at his [Fergusson’s] studio’ (Margaret Morris, The Art of J.D. Fergusson, Blackie, 1974, p13).

From the moment their paths crossed Fergusson’s life and work became imbued with a sense of rhythm, with one critic claiming he knew ‘of no living painter with a more profound feeling for the music that is colour’ (Morris, ibid, p.158). In the years preceding this fateful meeting, Fergusson had engaged with the concept by way of the artistic magazine Rhythm, of which he was art editor from 1911-12. But it was in Antibes that their love of the area, of each other and of the natural and nascent way of life combined to inspire arguably Fergusson’s best paintings such as Amongst the Rocks, Cap d’Antibes. Morris’s dance school enjoyed repeated summer residences at Juan-les-Pins, the home of philanthropist George Davison where Fergusson lived and worked in Antibes. The school provided ample models for Fergusson’s female studies and, with the exception of the war years, the couple would continue to summer in Cap d’Antibes until 1960. The present work can be seen as both a celebration of the female form and its liberation through movement; at once an example of Scottish and French modernism and a picture extremely personal to Fergusson’s great love.