At Dovecot Studios from 7 February a new exhibition will place the Scottish Colourists in the context of their European and UK contemporaries.

The Colourists were an international generation of radicals who used a new language of colour in Paris. In Scotland Peploe, Cadell, Fergusson, and Hunter were the most experimental and distinctive during the 20th century.

Their work will be displayed alongside that of Fauve painters such as Matisse and Derain. A key work on display has been lent by the Tate – the Fauvist work Pool of London by Derain.

Other paintings by Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant two of the Bloomsbury Group as well as work from the Camden Town Group will round out the international journey along with works by Welsh artists August John and John Dickson Innes and Ireland’s Roderic O’Connor.

The culmination of the show will celebrate the coming together of the Scottish Colourists as a distinct group in the 1920s and 1930s, marked out by the continuing influence of both French colour and Scottish light upon their work as painters of landscape, still life, and interiors. Appropriately, their dedicated group show was held in Paris in 1924, followed by a 1925 London show, making Dovecot’s 2025 exhibition a most timely centenary celebration.

James Knox, Curator of the Fleming Collection, said: “This momentous exhibition will, for the very
first time, shine the spotlight on the radical Scots and their contemporaries, allowing us to truly
assess their achievements and place in the history of early European modernism. I am immensely
grateful to the national institutions and private collectors who have enabled this story to be told
alongside the Fleming Collection’s outstanding Scottish Colourists.”


Celia Joicey, Director of Dovecot Studios said: “Presenting the Scottish Colourists at the vanguard
of the creative avant-garde in the UK is an opportunity to recast Scotland’s pivotal role in the
history of early 20th century art. As a tapestry studio founded in 1912, it is exciting for Dovecot
to show these important paintings which set our work and world-class reputation in a
compelling new context.”

The Scottish Colourists – Radical Perspectives 7 February to 28 June at Dovecot Studios 10 Infirmary Street EH1 1LT.

dovecotstudios.com

S J Peploe Luxembourg Gardens Image courtesy of Fleming Collection
J D Fergusson THe Drift Posts Image courtesy of the Fleming Collection
FCB Cadell, The Feathered Hat, c.1914, oil on millboard. Image courtesy of the Fleming Collection
Peonies in a Chinese Vase, c.1928 (oil on board) Hunter, George Leslie (1877-1931) FLEMING COLLECTION,
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