Artistic talent delivered in spades
A rare opportunity to see an outstanding collection of Scottish Colourists is taking place at the Maclaurin Gallery at Rozelle House in Ayr.
It opens this Saturday and runs till September 30.
The exhibition Rhythm of Light: Scottish Colourists from the Fleming Collection is normally touring museums and galleries south of the Border where it has drawn record crowds.
However, as part of the Fleming Collection’s 50th Anniversary celebrations, the Colourists are making a homecoming.
The Fleming Collection started out in 1968 as a few paintings purchased to brighten up the offices of the merchant bank Robert Fleming & Co in London.
From the start, it was decided to acquire Scottish works from all periods to reflect the roots of the bank’s founder, Robert Fleming, who was born in 1845 in Dundee.
Today the collection, which is now owned by a charitable foundation, consists of over 600 works dating from the seventeenth century to the present day and is deemed to be the finest collection of Scottish art outside public institutions.
The Colourist paintings by
S. J. Peploe, J. D. Fergusson, Leslie Hunter, and F. C. B. Cadell, have been at the heart of the Fleming Collection since its inception.
One of the first purchases in 1968 was Hunter’s masterpiece Peonies in a Chinese Vase, which along with other key works such as Peploe’s
Luxembourg Gardens, Fergusson’s Blue Nude and Cadell’s The Feathered Hat, reveal their remarkable development as artists.
The exhibition charts their careers from the early experimentalism under the sway of Whistler and Manet to the breakthrough impact of the Fauves – the ‘ wild beasts’ of contemporary French art
- to the mature works of the 1920s which saw a prodigious stream of Colourist painting fusing a Scots sensibility with a Continental palette.
James Knox, Director of the Fleming Collection, said of the exhibition this week: “The aim of our dynamic exhibition programme is to highlight the achievements of Scottish artists to both new and familiar audiences.
The range of masterworks in the Fleming Collection brings into focus the creativity, adventurousness, intellectual curiosity and native talent of the Scots – all of which the Colourists had in spades.
“The show at the Maclaurin Gallery can only reinforce the Colourists’ status as four of the most innovative and distinctive artists in twentieth century British art.”
John Walker, chairman of The Maclaurin Trust, said :
“The Maclaurin Art Gallery has been successful in bringing exhibitions to Ayr to complement the array of works in our admired permanent collection.
“Rhythm of Light” brings just that - a splendid opportunity to see the works of The Scottish Colourists from the Fleming Collection - a highlight of the Gallery’s season, which is generously supported by the Fleming- Wyfold Art Foundation, the Maclaurin Trust, Arts at Rozelle and Investec - the Maclaurin Trust’s Fund Managers.