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拍品专文
‘His palette is very personal. He possesses the art of binding fundamental tone with light ones, notably yellows, prudently chosen and here and there pushed to a height almost harsh. It is a feature which deeply impressed the great number of artists…’ (André Salmon)
The Harbour at Lower Largo, 1925, displays the rhythmic, flurried brushstrokes of vibrantly coloured impasto, which defined Hunter’s works of the 1920s. During this period Hunter travelled to the South of France, later settling at Saint-Paul-de-Vence, with a studio overlooking the Provençal landscape, a picturesque setting with its floral valleys and scented fields. Hunter recorded, 'I like this country very much … I have been in St Paul a week and have just got into a new little studio … where I can paint still life as well as landscape. Still life that is different from in Glasgow. Fruit is just coming on and flowers are abundant. This is a painter’s country' (G.L. Hunter, quoted in B. Smith & J. Marriner, Hunter Revisited – The Life and Art of Leslie Hunter, Edinburgh, 2012, p. 131).
It was a particularly active period of intense experimentation where his work became revitalised by his Mediterranean surroundings. This inspiration is evident in The Harbour at Lower Largo with its luminous tones of cool blues and jewelled greens of the sea and sky, juxtaposed with touches of warm oranges and reds, which is reflective of his sun-drenched surrounds. This particular interest in colour was noted by critics of the day who stated, ‘Mr Hunter’s strongest point is his colour, which is gay and attractive attaining a luscious brilliancy…he is one of those artists in whom style and spontaneity play a large part’ (quoted in T. J. Honeyman, Three Scottish Colourists, London, 1950, p. 108). This was supported by Hunter, who wrote in his notebook, 'everyone must choose his own way, and mine will be the way of colour' (G.L Hunter, quoted in ibid., p. 103).
Hunter’s early work had looked towards the Dutch Masters for inspiration but these rather tentative explorations were superseded by the colour and vitality of the Fauves and particularly Henri Matisse. Hunter recognised that these artists were not merely reproducing what they saw before them but were expressing their emotional response to their chosen subject through colour. The work of Matisse gave him the language to express himself, however, the narratives that Hunter subsequently constructed were unmistakably his own. Indeed when Hunter exhibited in New York in 1929, the critic for the New York Evening Post commented that ‘it would be difficult not to think of Matisse at first viewing the exhibition. Yet after looking at it longer one sees that there has been an influence of Matisse, but that here is a new individual palette and personality’.
The Harbour at Lower Largo, 1925, displays the rhythmic, flurried brushstrokes of vibrantly coloured impasto, which defined Hunter’s works of the 1920s. During this period Hunter travelled to the South of France, later settling at Saint-Paul-de-Vence, with a studio overlooking the Provençal landscape, a picturesque setting with its floral valleys and scented fields. Hunter recorded, 'I like this country very much … I have been in St Paul a week and have just got into a new little studio … where I can paint still life as well as landscape. Still life that is different from in Glasgow. Fruit is just coming on and flowers are abundant. This is a painter’s country' (G.L. Hunter, quoted in B. Smith & J. Marriner, Hunter Revisited – The Life and Art of Leslie Hunter, Edinburgh, 2012, p. 131).
It was a particularly active period of intense experimentation where his work became revitalised by his Mediterranean surroundings. This inspiration is evident in The Harbour at Lower Largo with its luminous tones of cool blues and jewelled greens of the sea and sky, juxtaposed with touches of warm oranges and reds, which is reflective of his sun-drenched surrounds. This particular interest in colour was noted by critics of the day who stated, ‘Mr Hunter’s strongest point is his colour, which is gay and attractive attaining a luscious brilliancy…he is one of those artists in whom style and spontaneity play a large part’ (quoted in T. J. Honeyman, Three Scottish Colourists, London, 1950, p. 108). This was supported by Hunter, who wrote in his notebook, 'everyone must choose his own way, and mine will be the way of colour' (G.L Hunter, quoted in ibid., p. 103).
Hunter’s early work had looked towards the Dutch Masters for inspiration but these rather tentative explorations were superseded by the colour and vitality of the Fauves and particularly Henri Matisse. Hunter recognised that these artists were not merely reproducing what they saw before them but were expressing their emotional response to their chosen subject through colour. The work of Matisse gave him the language to express himself, however, the narratives that Hunter subsequently constructed were unmistakably his own. Indeed when Hunter exhibited in New York in 1929, the critic for the New York Evening Post commented that ‘it would be difficult not to think of Matisse at first viewing the exhibition. Yet after looking at it longer one sees that there has been an influence of Matisse, but that here is a new individual palette and personality’.