Samuel John Peploe, R.S.A.

Pearson & Westergaard, Glasgow;
Alex Reid & Lefevre, London;
Private collection

STRUCTURE Original canvas. Impasto to the central flowers. Some very minor craquelure to the lower portion of the composition. However, in generally good original order. Ready to hang. ULTRAVIOLET LIGHT There is possibly a small amount of retouching apparent to the extreme upper right edge and upper left corner, probably as result of peripheral frame rubbing. FRAME Held in a reproduction gilt composition frame.
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In his life long quest to craft the perfect still life, Peploe returned again and again to arrangements of flowers, particularly tulips or roses. Every time he approached this subject with a more mature eye; he modified colours, objects, and light to make each composition fresh and impressive. His work from the 1920s onwards best showcases his virtuosity in translating colour, texture, pattern, and movement on the blank canvas, and this composition, painted around 1930, is no exception.

Around 1919 Peploe painted a striking series of still lifes with tulips, remarkable for their bright colouring and bold compositions and redolent of the modernism of the unfolding jazz age. He had used colour at its highest pitch since his return to Scotland from a period in France in 1913. At first he painted bold, colourful still lifes and landscapes in which primary tones were emphasised by strong black outlines. By 1919 he ceased to differentiate the changes of plane and colour with outlines and the juxtaposition of bright colours placed side by side was used 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 his Work, 1946, p. 43). By this period in his career Peploe was an established artist with a fully rounded sense of his artistic aims. His reputation was affirmed by his election to the Royal Scottish Academy in 1917 and by highly successful exhibitions at Aitken Dott & Sons in Edinburgh. His paintings were confidently bold in execution and composition, rhythmic in arrangement and vibrant in colour. The paintings of tulips mark the epitome of his still life paintings of this period.

The connection between the work of Peploe and Cadell was particularly strong at this time and although the artists did not share a studio on a permanent basis, it is likely that Peploe used Cadell's studio on occasion. It is likely that Peploe kept his friend Cadell informed of artistic advances in France and that the influence of the Fauves upon the two artists work was predominantly generated by Peploe's enthusiasm for the art he had seen in Paris in the earlier years of the decade. This interest manifested itself in the saturated colours and flattened perspectives of his still lifes '... and a simplification of modelling with a consequent emphasis on pattern. Both the patterns made by the shapes of the objects in these paintings - jug, fruit, bowl, chair - and the flat decorative patterns of the pieces of cloth used as drapes in the background combine to create an overall abstract design which is the true subject of the painting.' (Roger Billcliffe, The Scottish Colourists; Cadell, Fergusson, Hunter, Peploe, 1989, p. 43).