George Leslie Hunter

Muirhead Moffat & Co., Glasgow;
Private collection

STRUCTURE The board appears to be sound and has horizontal supports on the reverse. There is a surface abrasion in the upper left corner and another by the centre of the right edge. Other areas of the board are visible but these appear intended by the artist. The varnish has discoloured and there are areas of surface dirt; otherwise the work appears in good overall condition with strong passages of impasto. ULTRAVIOLET LIGHT Under UV light there appear to be no signs of retouching. FRAME Held in a gilt plaster frame.
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Still Life with Fruit and Roses is an exceptional example of Hunter's exploration of the still life genre that defined his work in the second decade of the twentieth century.  Following a period of deep depression, Hunter returned to still life painting in the 1920s with a vivacity that is seen in the precise yet spirited application of paint and in the vibrant colours of the fruit and roses.  This was also a period of great experimentation in his approach to still life paintings. 'Leslie Hunter's later still life and flower paintings exhibit considerable variety in both style and subject.  It is clear that he continued to experiment, although bright colour was a constant constituent of his work, often with vibrant colours of fruit echoed in the design on a vase or background curtain' (Derek Ogston, The Life and Work of George Leslie Hunter 1877-1931, 2002, p.49).  The painting represents a fascinating moment when Hunter chose not to approach his subject through his characteristic study of brilliant colour but instead to set those defining bright colours against a muted light background to explore the relationship between colour and perspective.

The careful selection and arrangement of the objects in the painting reflects Hunter's fascination with seventeenth-century Dutch still life painters such as Willem Kalf and the eighteenth-century French painter Jean-Simeon Chardin, whose works he viewed in Glasgow.  Hunter's style was also heavily influenced by Edward Manet and Paul Cézanne, and the impact of these painters is evident in the tilted perspective of the blue porcelain dish and in the broad, confident brush strokes that form the fruit below the rose vase.  The objects Hunter chose for the composition are representative of his approach to still life painting.  Hunter held a particular fascination for roses as a subject in his paintings, and they are found in a number of his works such as A Bouquet for Mollie; Still Life (Sotheby's, 24 April 2006, lot 156).  Hunter also frequently included many of the same objects in his still life paintings. The blue dish is a common motif in the artist's still life paintings, and the variations in which he depicted it, such as in the slightly abstracted representation in this painting, showcase Hunter's explorative artistic personality. This painting is an exquisite example of the work of an artist who at his memorial exhibition was described as a painter who "painted at fever-heat, with that degree of fervour we know as inspiration." (Eric de Banzie, in Intimate Friends: Scottish Colourists from the Hunterian Art Gallery and The Fleming Collection, 2003, p. 67).