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STILL LIFE WITH TULIPS

measurements note
75 by 61.5 cm., 29½ by 24½ in.

signed on the reverse; peploe

oil on canvas

PROVENANCE

Sotheby's, 29 August 1975, lot 363;
Fine Art Society, London, where bought by the present owner in 1977;
Private Collection

NOTE

Around 1919 Samuel John Peploe painted a striking series of still lifes with tulips, remarkable for their bright colouring and bold compositions and redolent of the modernism of the unfolding jazz-age. Peploe had used colour at its highest pitch since his return to Scotland from a period in France in 1913. At first he painted bold, colourful still lifes and landscapes in which primary tones were emphasised by strong black outlines. By 1919 he ceased to differentiate the changes of plane and colour with outlines and the juxtaposition of bright colours placed side by side was used to convey intensity; '... the main impression gathered from his paintings is of colour, intense colour, and colour in its most colourful aspect. One is conscious of material selected for inclusion in still-life groups because of its colourful effect; reds, blues, and yellows are unmistakably red, blue and yellow; the neutrals are black and white.' (Stanley Cursiter, Peploe: An Intimate Memoir of an Artist and his Work, 1946, p. 43). By this period in his career Peploe was an established artist with a fully rounded sense of his artistic aims. His reputation was affirmed by his election to the Royal Scottish Academy in 1917 and by highly successful exhibitions at Aitken Dott & Sons in Edinburgh. His paintings were confidently bold in execution and composition, rhythmic in arrangement and vibrant in colour. The paintings of tulips mark the epitome of his still life paintings of this period in which the arabesques of drooping stems are mirrored by the soft curves of ripe citrus fruit and the contours of porcelain. Angles created by the tablecloth, drape and chair-back add a further element of contrast and divide the pictorial space into a series of shapes flooded with pure colour, not unlike stained-glass or the oriental prints so beloved by the Colourists and immortalised by Peploe in Interior with a Japanese Print of 1916 (University of Hull Art Collection).

The connection between the work of Peploe and Cadell was particularly strong at this time and although the artists did not share a studio on a permanent basis, there is likely that Peploe used Cadell's studio on occasion. The blue painted wall in the background of the present picture features strongly in paintings by Cadell from the early 1920s including Still Life and Rosechatel of 1924 (Hunterian Art Gallery) and also in other pictures by Peploe such as A Vase of Pink Roses c.1925 (Fleming-Wyfold Art Foundation). Cadell's simple red-painted dining chair is the same example that appears in paintings by both Cadell and Peploe and became a staple prop in both artist's work. It is likely that Peploe kept Cadell informed of artistic advances in France and that the influence of the Fauves upon the two artists work was predominantly generated by Peploe's enthusiasm for the art he had seen in Paris in the earlier years of the decade. This interest manifested itself in the saturated colours and flattened perspectives of his still-lifes '... and a simplification of modelling with a consequent emphasis on pattern. Both the patterns made by the shapes of the objects in these paintings - jug, fruit, bowl, chair - and the flat decorative patterns of the pieces of cloth used as drapes in the background combine to create an overall abstract design which is the true subject of the painting.' (Roger Billcliffe, The Scottish Colourists; Cadell, Fergusson, Hunter, Peploe, 1989, p. 43). Still Life with Tulips can be compared with Henri Matisse's Anémones au Miroir Noir painted between 1918 and 1919 (Sotheby's New York, 7 November 2001, lot 17, sold for $4,185,750), both pictures parring the angular lines suggested by arrangements of still life and furniture into images of reflecting and contrasting tones and shapes.

Two smaller compositions of tulips by Peploe from the same period are in private collections, Still Life with Tulips and Tulips and Fruit. The paintings share the colour scheme of primary reds, yellows, greens and blues with accents of white and black. Tulips and Fruit and the present picture both depict the green and white drape or kimono hanging on the wall, whilst Still Life with Tulips also includes the red chair. The bowls of fruit, black lacquer fans and oriental vases of tulips were often arranged on yellow painted tabletop and set against azure blue painted walls, which emphasise the contrasts of the colours of the flowers.