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JOHN DUNCAN FERGUSSON (1874-1961) John Duncan Fergusson was born on the 9th of March 1874, at 7 Crown Street, The Port of Leith, Edinburgh, the eldest of four children to John Fergusson. After receiving his education at the Royal High School he decided to become a Naval Surgeon, but failed to matriculate at the University or The Royal College of Surgeons, and therefore gave up the idea of medicine in order to devote himself to art. Fergusson spent his early career away from Scotland, travelling by tramp steamer to Spain and Morocco. In 1898 on a visit to Paris it is recorded that he was impressed by the works of Bonington at the Louvre and the Impressionists in the Salle Callebotte in the Luxembourg. Having painted numerous views of Peebles, Paris and Edinburgh in the period 1899 to 1902, he was elected member of the Royal Society of British Artists in 1903. In that same year, he returned to France with Samuel John Peploe, spending the summer sketching at the resorts of Paris-Plage and Le Touquet. In 1905 Fergusson decided to settle and work in Paris, at a time when the spontaneous work and brilliant colour of Fauvism was strongly influencing many artists. Although not overwhelmed by this movement his pictures show that it did brighten his palette and introduced a new boldness of line and simplicity of form. It was around this time that he met the artist Anne Estelle Rice, an Irish-American from Philadelphia who, with her companion Elizabeth Dryden, appears in several of Fergusson's works. In 1910, his work developed a new individual character and the introduction of greater design is incorporated with a recurring pattern of interrelated colours. The following year he became deeply involved with the launching of the periodical Rhythm, later becoming the editor. In 1913 he met his future commonlaw wife, Margaret Morris, and together with S.J. Peploe visited Cassis. At the outbreak of war in 1914, they returned to London where Fergusson was appointed a War Artist with the Royal Navy. It is during this period that his style changed again; it became more simplified, and in place of sensuality, a hardness which took on a cubist tendancy. Fergusson continued to live in London until 1929, making several visits to Scotland and France, and exhibiting in New York in 1926 and 1928. In the later part of 1929 he returned to Paris to settle for the second time; he was to remain there until the outbreak of the Second World War. In 1940 with his wife Margaret Morris, he took a studio at 4 Clouston Street, Glasgow. In 1948 a retrospective exhibition opened in Glasgow, and in 1950 he was made honourary LL.D. of the University of Stirling, where he lived until his death on the 30th January 1961. It was Dunoyer de Segonzac who wrote of Fergusson, 'His art is a deep and pure expression of his pure love of life'. THE PROPERTY OF MRS NATALIE BARCLAY (FORMERLY MRS NATALIE BEVAN) REMOVED FROM BOXTED HOUSE, COLCHESTER, ESSEX

John Duncan Fergusson (1874-1961)

Paris-Plage, France

Details

John Duncan Fergusson (1874-1961)
Paris-Plage, France
signed, inscribed and dated 'J.D. Fergusson/Paris Plage./1904.' (on the reverse)
oil on board
7½ x 9½ in. (19 x 24.1 cm.)

Provenance

R.A. Bevan, by whom purchased at the 1966 exhibition.

Exhibited

London, Anthony d'Offay Fine Art, The Influence of Whistler on English Painting, November-December 1966, no. 5a.

Special notice

No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 17.5% will be added to the buyer's premium which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis.

Lot Essay

Fergusson and his great friend, Samuel John Peploe made regular summer trips to Paris and the French coast during the early 1900s. Fergusson recalled, 'One Year we went together to Islay. In others it was to Etaples, Paris Plage, Dunkirk, Berneval [see lot 88], Dieppe, Etretat and Le Tréport - all happy painting holidays' (see M. Morris, The Art of J.D. Fergusson, Glasgow, 1974, p. 44).

Kirsten Simister (Living Paint, J.D. Fergusson 1874-1961), Edinburgh, 2001, p. 23) writes of their numerous oil sketches painted on the coast, 'Working en plein air in the manner of the French Impressionists, their palettes became paler and fresher and their brushwork more fluent in handling. They developed the facility to convey the essence of their subject matter with breathtaking simplicity using thick, creamy paint, applied with seemingly effortless skill'.

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