.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
‘Mr Peploe had an exhibition of mostly flower pictures, mostly so far as I remember, of tulips - red, yellow and white - painted against blue backgrounds with different coloured draperies. I had never seen anything in art similar to these pictures, and I did not understand them. They really startled me for, to my eyes, they were so ultra-modern’ (Ion Harrison, quoted in T.J. Honeyman, Three Scottish Colourists, London, 1950, p. 119).
In the 1920s, Peploe’s series of still-lifes documents the development of his modern style, of which Pink rose in a glass vase with fruit is an exceptional example. It was painted around 1925, a period considered to be the height of his career when he executed some of his most vibrant still-lifes. Peploe found in this genre his own characteristic way of experimenting with colours and shapes, linking him to the Post-Impressionist Masters such as Paul Cézanne and Henri Matisse. Peploe’s arrangement of the still-life subject was so fastidious that, according to his niece, he used to spend painstaking weeks setting up compositions until he reached what he considered to be a balanced configuration.
The main focus of the present work is a single rose tipping to the side of the glass vase, its delicate pink boldly framed by a heavy red outline. The vase is placed on a wooden table on which a crumpled white cloth, a white rose and three pieces of fruit - an orange, a pear and an apple - are positioned. In the background of the picture, a chair partly covered with a cloth is on the right, and the corner of a framed picture is just visible in the upper left corner. The composition is depicted with expressive brushstrokes and thick lines which define the objects without enclosing them. The painting in general, with its conjunction of forms, colours and symmetry, demonstrates how skilful Peploe was. His combination of colour, both strong and delicate, is harmonious: acid oranges, shiny whites, cobalt blues, emerald greens and warm pinks. It is also interesting to note that he is not intent on creating a naturalistic depiction of a still-life, but instead he has flooded the composition with light, enabling him to experiment with different tones of shadow and textures.
Pink rose in a glass vase with fruit is an essay in dynamism of both composite form and colour, in which the painter has masterfully employed the avant-garde techniques he learnt while living in France, while maintaining the traditions from his early career to produce a unique and individual style at once identifiable as his own.
In the 1920s, Peploe’s series of still-lifes documents the development of his modern style, of which Pink rose in a glass vase with fruit is an exceptional example. It was painted around 1925, a period considered to be the height of his career when he executed some of his most vibrant still-lifes. Peploe found in this genre his own characteristic way of experimenting with colours and shapes, linking him to the Post-Impressionist Masters such as Paul Cézanne and Henri Matisse. Peploe’s arrangement of the still-life subject was so fastidious that, according to his niece, he used to spend painstaking weeks setting up compositions until he reached what he considered to be a balanced configuration.
The main focus of the present work is a single rose tipping to the side of the glass vase, its delicate pink boldly framed by a heavy red outline. The vase is placed on a wooden table on which a crumpled white cloth, a white rose and three pieces of fruit - an orange, a pear and an apple - are positioned. In the background of the picture, a chair partly covered with a cloth is on the right, and the corner of a framed picture is just visible in the upper left corner. The composition is depicted with expressive brushstrokes and thick lines which define the objects without enclosing them. The painting in general, with its conjunction of forms, colours and symmetry, demonstrates how skilful Peploe was. His combination of colour, both strong and delicate, is harmonious: acid oranges, shiny whites, cobalt blues, emerald greens and warm pinks. It is also interesting to note that he is not intent on creating a naturalistic depiction of a still-life, but instead he has flooded the composition with light, enabling him to experiment with different tones of shadow and textures.
Pink rose in a glass vase with fruit is an essay in dynamism of both composite form and colour, in which the painter has masterfully employed the avant-garde techniques he learnt while living in France, while maintaining the traditions from his early career to produce a unique and individual style at once identifiable as his own.