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Lot Essay
Roses was painted in the early years of the 1920s, when Peploe's work took on a new direction and he began to paint a series of beautiful vibrant still-lifes. It was during this period that his work progressed rapidly placing him in the vanguard of British painters. In 1918 Peploe wrote to Cadell that he was 'waiting a new development - what will it be I do not yet quite know' (letter from Peploe to Cadell, 20-6-1918, National Library of Scotland). His style however, concentrated less on texture and tone and more on making colour, form and symmetry. Moving away from the style of Manet of his earlier period, Peploe developed a way of painting more closely akin to the Fauves and especially that of Cézanne with tropical colour and delineated tone. In these still-lifes broadly applied paint expresses the forms of citrus fruit, flower blooms, oriental vases and fans as studies of shape and colour. They are 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 when he returned to Scotland from a period in France after 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.
Stanley Curister, Peploe's biographer, describes how after 1918 'studies of roses, in particular, began to appear, forming the first of a series of rose pictures which he continued to produce throughout the years, changing as his style developed but invariably fine. When he selected his flowers or fruit from a painter's point of view he presented a new problem to the Edinburgh florists. They did not always understand when he rejected a lemon for its form or a pear for its colour, and he remained unmoved by their protestations of ripeness or flavour' (S. Curister, An Intimate Memoir of an Artist and of his Work, Kirkcudbright, 1947, p. 54). Peploe's compositions and choices of colour share the same meticulous and deliberate nature and by this period of his career, he had finely tuned his vision to such a degree that the effect is at once strikingly intense and harmoniously ordered. Peploe was also a collector of blue and white porcelain and the oriental vase which appears in this painting is one which he painted in several compositions during this period.
By this period in his career Peploe was an established artist with his reputation affirmed by his election to the Royal Scottish Academy in 1917 and by highly successful exhibitions at Aitken Dott & Sons in Edinburgh. Roses is among one of the most dynamic and beautiful of all the artist's studies of the rose he painted during this period.
Peploe had used colour at its highest pitch when he returned to Scotland from a period in France after 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.
Stanley Curister, Peploe's biographer, describes how after 1918 'studies of roses, in particular, began to appear, forming the first of a series of rose pictures which he continued to produce throughout the years, changing as his style developed but invariably fine. When he selected his flowers or fruit from a painter's point of view he presented a new problem to the Edinburgh florists. They did not always understand when he rejected a lemon for its form or a pear for its colour, and he remained unmoved by their protestations of ripeness or flavour' (S. Curister, An Intimate Memoir of an Artist and of his Work, Kirkcudbright, 1947, p. 54). Peploe's compositions and choices of colour share the same meticulous and deliberate nature and by this period of his career, he had finely tuned his vision to such a degree that the effect is at once strikingly intense and harmoniously ordered. Peploe was also a collector of blue and white porcelain and the oriental vase which appears in this painting is one which he painted in several compositions during this period.
By this period in his career Peploe was an established artist with his reputation affirmed by his election to the Royal Scottish Academy in 1917 and by highly successful exhibitions at Aitken Dott & Sons in Edinburgh. Roses is among one of the most dynamic and beautiful of all the artist's studies of the rose he painted during this period.