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Lot Essay
Most recently on public exhibition at the Royal Academy's acclaimed The Scottish Colourists 1900-1930, which travelled on to the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in Edinburgh, Pink Roses, Fruit and Books on a polished table is a key work dating from shortly after The First World War. The frequency with which Pink Roses, Fruit and Books on a polished table has appeared at exhibitions suggests that it is an important picture with a very wide appeal. Indeed when it has been referred to in catalogue exhibitions or literature on Scottish paintings it seems to be one of a handful of representative favourites to merit an illustration.
It is interesting to compare the present composition with a classic white-ground still-life compositions by the artist; Peploe here displays a mastery of his still-life quest. He set himself the extraordinarily challenging composition of grouping three vases, two bowls of fruit and various books set on a polished table. In the end result, he has created a work of great harmony and balance and he has approached this challenge with a technique typical of the period. Still more remarkable is the effect of brilliant light bathing his still life from the left of the composition. The 1985 Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art exhibition catalogue describes the present work as being part of a group of pictures in which Peploe used a dry, dense paint and acidic colours; in which objects are stacked up in an unreal space, suggesting that there is a looking back to the still lifes of circa 1914, but without the black outlining of forms.
Major Ion Harrison, the previous owner of Pink Roses, Fruit and Books on a polished table' was a hugely important patron of all four of the Colourists, particularly Peploe (who stayed with him on two occasions). Taking advice from his great friend Tom Honeyman, Director of Glasgow's Art Gallery, Harrison assembled an extraordinary range of pictures and became close friends with the artists, particularly Peploe, Cadell and Hunter. Harrison contributed to Honeyman's Three Scottish Colourists, adding his own section 'As I Remember Them' (op. cit., p. 119) in which we are offered some fascinating insights into Harrison's friendships and observations. Perhaps with reference to this work more than any other he said, 'as a generalisation I call Peploe the Blue Painter, Cadell the Green Painter and Hunter the Red Painter, for there are very few pictures by any of these artists which do not show a distinct trace of their fondness for their own particular colour' (op. cit, p. 123).
It is interesting to compare the present composition with a classic white-ground still-life compositions by the artist; Peploe here displays a mastery of his still-life quest. He set himself the extraordinarily challenging composition of grouping three vases, two bowls of fruit and various books set on a polished table. In the end result, he has created a work of great harmony and balance and he has approached this challenge with a technique typical of the period. Still more remarkable is the effect of brilliant light bathing his still life from the left of the composition. The 1985 Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art exhibition catalogue describes the present work as being part of a group of pictures in which Peploe used a dry, dense paint and acidic colours; in which objects are stacked up in an unreal space, suggesting that there is a looking back to the still lifes of circa 1914, but without the black outlining of forms.
Major Ion Harrison, the previous owner of Pink Roses, Fruit and Books on a polished table' was a hugely important patron of all four of the Colourists, particularly Peploe (who stayed with him on two occasions). Taking advice from his great friend Tom Honeyman, Director of Glasgow's Art Gallery, Harrison assembled an extraordinary range of pictures and became close friends with the artists, particularly Peploe, Cadell and Hunter. Harrison contributed to Honeyman's Three Scottish Colourists, adding his own section 'As I Remember Them' (op. cit., p. 119) in which we are offered some fascinating insights into Harrison's friendships and observations. Perhaps with reference to this work more than any other he said, 'as a generalisation I call Peploe the Blue Painter, Cadell the Green Painter and Hunter the Red Painter, for there are very few pictures by any of these artists which do not show a distinct trace of their fondness for their own particular colour' (op. cit, p. 123).