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拍品專文
J.D. Fergusson’s Margaret and Willy Peploe at Hotel Panorama, Cassis is a tender portrait of the wife and young son of his fellow Scottish Colourist, S.J. Peploe. The two men had been friends since the 1890s, and it was at Fergusson’s urging that the Peploes made their first visit to Cassis, on the Provençal coast, in 1913.
Margaret, in a lilac dress, occupies the centre of the canvas, composed and self-possessed, her gaze drifting beyond the picture, while Willy, then about three, sits at the lower right. Behind them rises a pale building, presumably the hotel of the title, set against a blue sky and the dark green of a tree. Fergusson, who had absorbed the chromatic daring of the Fauves after moving to Paris in 1907, builds the scene from broad, flattened planes of pink, mauve and green. Yet the considered, architectural handling owes as much to Cézanne, who had painted at L’Estaque, a short way along the same coast, and lends the figures a quiet monumentality.
Guy Peploe has observed that Fergusson’s women are ‘celebrated as equals’ (G. Peploe, ‘Fergusson’s Women: An Enduring Obsession’, 1998). Though Margaret does not meet our gaze here, she is presented with a calm and dignity that corroborate this reading: she is not a mere ornament to the scene, but the presence that anchors it. Gifted directly to her by Fergusson, the portrait is a tribute to a mother, a friend and an equal, and has remained in the family ever since.
Margaret, in a lilac dress, occupies the centre of the canvas, composed and self-possessed, her gaze drifting beyond the picture, while Willy, then about three, sits at the lower right. Behind them rises a pale building, presumably the hotel of the title, set against a blue sky and the dark green of a tree. Fergusson, who had absorbed the chromatic daring of the Fauves after moving to Paris in 1907, builds the scene from broad, flattened planes of pink, mauve and green. Yet the considered, architectural handling owes as much to Cézanne, who had painted at L’Estaque, a short way along the same coast, and lends the figures a quiet monumentality.
Guy Peploe has observed that Fergusson’s women are ‘celebrated as equals’ (G. Peploe, ‘Fergusson’s Women: An Enduring Obsession’, 1998). Though Margaret does not meet our gaze here, she is presented with a calm and dignity that corroborate this reading: she is not a mere ornament to the scene, but the presence that anchors it. Gifted directly to her by Fergusson, the portrait is a tribute to a mother, a friend and an equal, and has remained in the family ever since.