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signed and dated on the reverse: J. D. FEGUSSON./ JAN. 14. 1938. and inscribed: ROSES twice on the stretcher

oil on canvas

PROVENANCE

Edinburgh, Aitken Dott & Son

CATALOGUE NOTE

Roses is one of a series of large and impressive paintings of floral subjects painted by Fergusson in 1938. Others from the series include Gloxinias and Fuchsias and Lilies, both now in the collection of the Fergusson Gallery in Perth. In these striking canvases, the forms of the flowers are broken down into undulating, sensuous curves which reflect the strong influence of the Cubists upon Fergusson's work.

Roses was painted during the period when Fergusson was living in Paris with Margaret Morris. Peploe had died in 1931 and Cadell in 1937, but Fergusson continued to paint prolifically and with as much energy and imagination as ever. He had taken a studio in a block of flats at 6 rue Ernest Cresson in 1932 and around this time was painting chiefly portraits and nudes, of models such as the American fashion artist Roberta Paflin. Morris and Fergusson also bought the Manoir de Becheron in Sache, close to Tours in the Loire Valley, where he painted freshly coloured landscapes. War was looming, Morris and Fergusson surrounded themselves with friends and artists before returning to Scotland in 1939 at the outbreak.

The still lifes of this period in Fergusson's ouevre are Modernist in their simplification, but are also suggestive of the eternal rhythm of organic growth. Like the contemporary female nudes, the feminine contours of the still lifes, with their fleshy leaves and blushing petals, reflect an appreciation and understanding of the essence of fertility, an almost sexual expression of natural forms and glowing colour. These are the same rhythms that Matisse had exploited in the pictures that had greatly inspired Fergusson in his mature work.