Summer

Fergusson was called up for military service in 1918, at 44 he was just within the age for conscription but passed his medical with the top A1 grading. His concern was the threat that this imposed to his plans to hold an exhibition at the Connell Gallery in London in May, his first solo show for four years. John Middleton Murry wrote the forward to the catalogue and the exhibition attracted a major review in the June issue of Colour Magazine. The present work is a study for the oil painting Summer which was featured on the cover.

In the event, the exhibition helped Fergusson to gain exemption from military service and gave those on the British War Memorials Committee an opportunity to see his work. With the support from the art critic P.G. Konody, a six-week commission was proposed by the Ministry of Information's Propaganda and Record Department. Fergusson was given access to Portsmouth Docks to make sketches and gather ideas. The commission was a fortuitous one, providing him with the opportunity to continue his love for the sea and boats. Fergusson took on the project with great enthusiasm and produced a great many drawings which were later worked up into distinctive studio paintings (see K. Simister, loc. cit.)