Samuel John Peploe, R.S.A.

Aitken Dott & Son, Edinburgh;
J. W. Blythe Esq.;
Duncan R. Miller Fine Arts, London;
Private Collection

Kirkcaldy, Kirkcaldy Art Gallery and Museum, Loan Exhibition, July - August 1928;
London, National Gallery, Exhibition of 20th Century British Paintings, 1940, no. 357;
Edinburgh, Royal Scottish Academy, Festival Exhibition, 1949;
London, Duncan R. Miller Fine Arts, S J Peploe Paintings and Drawings, 19 November - 12 December 1993, no. 26

The canvas is original and protected by backboard on the reverse. On close inspection there is some very minor frame abrasion at the upper edge. Otherwise in good original condition, clean and ready to hang. Held in a simple gold painted wooden frame in fair condition.
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In August 1920 Peploe made his first visit to the tiny but beautiful island of Iona, off the west coast of Mull, invited by his friend Francis Campbell Boileau Cadell who had adored the rugged coastal scenery and remoteness of the island since his own first visit in 1913. Peploe immediately became equally engaged by his surroundings and began to adopt Cadell's linear and abstract approach to landscape painting. 'Like Cadell he [Peploe] found the island offered him a release from the tensions of life in Edinburgh; it also provided an opportunity to relax with his growing family while, at the same time, offering a totally different inspiration. Peploe treated Iona as systematically as he did his studio still-lifes. While Cadell found subjects wherever he looked on the island, Peploe was much more methodical and limited in his outlook. Most of his Iona paintings are of the island's many bays, particularly at the north end, with the pale sands and intense blues and greens of the sea usually seen under skies flecked with cloud.' (Roger Billcliffe, The Scottish Colourists - Cadell, Fergusson, Hunter, Peploe, 1989, p. 52) The pictures he painted on Iona were immediately popular with collectors and 'did much to secure the artist's commercial success, at least paying the school fees. But the island was of far more significance for Peploe. It was a sanctuary. He felt in tune with this place.' (Guy Peploe, S. J. Peploe 1871-1935, 2000, p. 65) The spirituality engendered in Peploe whilst he was staying on Iona is evident in the Ode to the Elementals which Peploe composed to recite one midsummer night to a group of friends and members of his family; 'O Earth, our Mother, we, thy children, have come tonight to pay thee homage and to give thanks for all thy benefactions, to praise thee for thy manifold gifts.' (ibid Peploe, p. 65) The Ode continues to celebrate the wonders of nature and there is one line which seems particularly appropriate to the coastal views he painted at Iona; '...spirit of place, spirit of this particular place, lonely and barren, harsh and bitter is thy dwelling: encompassed by moor and rock and sea.' (ibid Peploe, p. 65) The present picture was painted c. 1925 and is directly comparable with many of his finest landscapes of the period including Green Sea, Iona, c.1920 (Robert Fleming Holdings Ltd.) and  Iona, c.1930 (Kirkcaldy Museum and Art Gallery).