George Leslie Hunter 1877-1931

Few of Hunter's paintings are dated and therefore the present work is fascinating as we can be sure when it was painted. It is believed that he first visited the Riviera late in 1926, when he took a studio within the Auberge de la Colombe d'Or at Saint-Paul-de-Vence. Letters indicate that he based himself at Vence but made painting excursions along the coast to Antibes, Toulon, St. Tropez and even ventured as far as Marseilles. One of his favourite places for painting was the fishing town of Juan-les-Pins where he painted the present view of boats pulled up on the beach beneath a rather ominous sky. An ink and crayon drawing entitled Juan-les-Pins also dated 1927 (Christie's, 26 October 2000, lot 185) appears to depict the same beach in more clement weather. Hunter complained that the bad weather in the south of France had made completing pictures difficult and it would appear that with the present picture he decided to make the overcast sky over the beach the subject of the picture. The large white building in the background is almost certainly the Hotel Povençal with its distinctive profile which appears in other pictures from 1926 and 1927.

At first Hunter was greatly inspired by France; '... I like this country very much and am sorry I did not come her six years ago in place of going to Fife. I feel six months here are worth six years there... It was in the South where the ideal setting for his work was to be found. There he could live like a peasant and feel like a prince. The utter simplicity of life – the peasant cooking – the plain white walls of his studio – the forms, colours richness of light in the surrounding landscape – all these gave him peace of mind and made for contentment.’ (T. J. Honeyman, Introducing Leslie Hunter, 1937, pp.119- 145). His enthusiasm for France resulted in a large number of drawings (over a hundred) but he was initially reticent to make any paintings. Honeyman suggested that this was due to the wealth of scenes that appealed to him and his desire to capture as many as possible and therefore his need to adopt a technique which allowed him to work as rapidly as possible. 'In the following year he began to show the error in such reasoning by being able then to say in paint and on canvas the same truths in a different way and with more conviction.' (ibid Honeyman, p.122) 

Despite the beautiful surroundings, the sunlight, the kindness of new friends and Hunter’s production of very fine paintings in France, his health began to deteriorate towards the end of his time there. Following his ingestion of a quantity of turpentine that he had mistaken for a glass of wine, he was admitted to a clinic in Nice after which it was decided that he should return to Glasgow to be nursed back to health.