Samuel John Peploe, R.S.A.

Alex, Reid & Lefevre Ltd, London;
Private Collection

The vibrant fresh colouring and dramatic juxtaposition of the earthenware flower pot, the fruit in the foreground and the geometric lines on the chair and drapery in the background of Still Life with Geraniums combine to create a rhythmic harmony of colour and form which is typical of Peploe's best work of the period. When he returned to Scotland from France in 1913 full of inspiration from what was the beating heart of the Modernist art world, a new interest had been discovered and so began his exploration of colour and form which became his primary concerns. At first he painted bold, colourful still lifes and landscapes in which primary tones were emphasised by strong black outlines. By 1919 he had ceased to differentiate the changes of plane and colour with outlines, instead he juxtaposed vivid colours to convey intensity; "the main impression gathered from his paintings is of colour, intense colour, and colour in its most colourful aspect. One is conscious of material selected for inclusion in still-life groups because of its colourful effect; reds, blues and yellows are unmistakably red, blue and yellow; the neutrals are black and white. (Stanley Cursiter, Peploe: An Intimate Memoir of an Artist and of His Work, 1947, p. 43).

The still life was Peploe's favourite subject and in a letter to a friend his passion is captured, stating that 'there is so much in mere objects, flowers, leaves, jugs, what not - colours, forms, relation - I can never see mystery coming to an end." (Ibid, p. 73). Perhaps more than any other of his contemporaries, Peploe was profoundly affected by the work of the Cubists and the Fauves and his work of the 1920s investigates the possibilities of artistic expression using only colour and form within the flattened pictorial space. His work of this period is not concerned with over complicated perspective, symbolism or the contrast between light and shade but instead presenting the subject in its purest and unfettered form. Peploe's contribution to the still life genre is arguably unequalled in the history of twentieth century British art.