Samuel John Peploe, R.S.A.

J.W. Blyth, Kirkcaldy

Edinburgh, Aitken Dott & Son, 1940;
Edinburgh, The Royal Scottish Academy, Peploe, Cadell and Hunter, 1956, no.15;
Edinburgh, The Arts Council, A Selection of Modern Scottish, English and French Paintings, 1956, no.20.

The board appears sound. A minor surface abrasion in upper left corner otherwise the work appears in very good overall condition with lovely impasto surface. Under ultraviolet light there appear to be some peripheral spots of retouching in the lower left, lower centre and lower right corners. A small spot near centre of upper edge and a small spot in the upper part of the building just left of the trees. Held in a moulded plaster frame; clean and ready to hang.
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Executed circa 1910, the year was a momentous one for Peploe. He left Edinburgh and moved to Paris, newly married to his long-time fiancé Margaret Mackay, where they settled in a large studio-apartment at 278 Boulevard Raspail.

This was the Paris of Diaghlev’s Ballet Russe. Peploe’s friend the painter J. D. Fergusson quipped: 'S.J. [Peploe] thought the nights at the ballet were among the greatest of his life. They were the greatest nights in anyone’s life.' Nijinsky, Leon Bakst, Stravinsky and Fokine were the luminaries and toast of the beau monde. The excitement of the dialogues in painting between the leaders of the avant-garde: Matisse, Picasso, Braque and Leger would have been of huge interest to both Peploe and Fergusson. It was in this heightened atmosphere that Peploe’s work developed a radically fauve approach to colour and the handling of paint. This came to fruition in the paintings that Peploe and Fergusson produced during trips to the port of Royan in the summers of 1910 and 1911; of which this painting is a perfect example.