Scottish Colourists

Scottish Colourists. A term applied to four Scottish painters who in the period c.1900–14 each spent some time in France and were strongly influenced by the rich colours and bold handling of recent French painting, notably Fauvism: they are F. C. B. Cadell (1883–1937), J. D. Fergusson, Leslie Hunter (1879–1931), and S. J. Peploe (1869–1933). The term was popularized by a book by T. J. Honeyman dealing with Cadell, Hunter, and Peploe (Three Scottish Colourists, 1950), but it is now usual to add Fergusson to their number, even though he stands apart from the rest in that he returned to live in France after the First World War, whereas the other three remained in Scotland. All four painters knew each other, and they exhibited together as ‘Les Peintres de L’Écosse Moderne', at the Galerie Barbazanges, Paris, in 1924, but they did not function as a group. They have been described as the first ‘modern’ Scottish artists; certainly they were the main channel through which Post-Impressionism reached their country. None of them was represented in Roger Fry's Post-Impressionist exhibitions of 1910 and 1912, but this reflects insular English attitudes towards Scottish art rather than the quality of their work.