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dated on the reverse: APRIL 5.59 / 7.NOV.58

oil on canvas

CATALOGUE NOTE

In 1957 Fergusson and his wife Margaret (née Morris) travelled to the favoured Riviera resort of Antibes, to enjoy the sun and swim in the sea, to meet with old friends and to paint. Whilst on the beach one day Fergusson was struck by the lithe figure of a beautiful young girl who bathed nearby in a scanty bikini. Ever receptive to the charms of femininity and unable to take his eyes off the beautiful girl, Fergusson urged his wife to obtain an introduction, which was duly done. Margaret Morris appears to have regarded Fergusson's interest in attractive young women quite indifferently as she knew that his admiration of a fine pair of breasts or a winning smile was almost wholly artistic. The girl, who Fergusson called 'Magnolia', willingly sat on the beach whilst the artist busily made drawings of her reclining beneath the suns rays or swimming in the azure bay and she was later invited to the studio to pose for a painting. An attractive photograph of Magnolia is reproduced in Kirsten Simister's Living Paint, J.D. Fergusson 1874-1961 published in 2001 (p. 109). She also posed for the large oil Two Nudes of 1959. It is possible that the present picture is the one noted by Meg in her biography of her husband as the last picture painted by Fergusson. As Meg wrote 'If she ever sees this book I hope she will take this as a tribute.' (Margaret Morris, The Art of J. D. Fergusson; A biased Biography, 1974, p. 197). The inscription on the reverse, suggests that Fergusson was not able to complete the picture in France and made the finishing touches in the spring of the following year.

Fergusson painted women with the same interest in form and warm colour that he lavished upon his still lifes and with this study of Magnolia he interpreted the curved forms with a similar approach to the way he might have painted a bowl of ripe fruit. The voluptuous female body is painted in the tradition of the curvaceous courtesans of Titian or the Neolithic fertility goddesses which Fergusson greatly admired. She is a type of Earth Mother or Eve, a symbol of female beauty and fertile sensuality and also a personification of the spirit of natural rhythmic harmony. Fergusson had painted similar female nudes around 1911, the most famous being Les Eus (Hunterian Art Gallery, University of Glasgow) and Rhythm (University of Stirling). When Fergusson designed the front cover of his magazine Rhythm, he used the figure from the latter painting, of a naked woman holding an apple.

The same interest in the fullness of form and organic shapes is evident in Fergusson's stone and bronze sculptures of nude women which were ultimately derived from early Celtic precidents. Fergusson wrote in 1958 of the inspiration of ancient sculpture upon his work, '...on the Celtic crosses there are 'bosses' - round shapes, half-spheres which express to him 'Suns', fullness, open eyes, women's breasts, apples, peaches, health and overflow...' (Ibid Morris, p. 201)