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Lot Essay
‘In his painting he tried to find the essentials by persistent trial. He worked all the time from nature but never imitated it. He often took a long time to make contact with a place and was discouraged by failure. He wanted to be sure before he started and seemed to believe that you could be sure. I don’t think he wanted to have a struggle on the canvas: he wanted to be sure of a thing and do it. That gave his picture something’ (J.D. Fergusson, ‘Memories of Peploe’, Scottish Art Review, 1962).
Painted circa 1925, Roses in a vase against an orange background is a radiant still life painting by the famed Scottish Colourist, Samuel John Peploe. Renowned for his elegant, colour-filled still life compositions, Roses in a vase against an orange background is particularly rare amongst this mature series, distinctive due to the glowing orange colour of the background. This vibrant tone is repeated in the foreground of the composition, complementing the deep blue of the tabletop and unifying the scene as a whole. Indeed, the composition is complex, its components skilfully orchestrated by the artist to create a completely harmonious image.
One of a series of floral still lifes that Peploe painted throughout the 1920s, Roses in a vase against an orange background features one of the most iconic motifs of the artist’s career: a bouquet of roses. As the 1920s progressed studies of roses, as well as tulips, began to dominate Peploe’s work. In 1920, Peploe’s great friend, the fellow colourist painter, Francis Cadell had invited him to stay on Iona, a small island off the West coast of Scotland. Peploe fell in love with this rural retreat and returned year after year, painting the windswept landscape and roiling Atlantic sea. From this point onwards, Peploe’s work fell into two distinct groups: the expressive landscapes of Iona and the carefully constructed still-lifes that he painted in his studio, of which Roses in a vase against an orange background is one.
Peploe’s flower pictures followed the seasons: he painted tulips in the spring, roses in the summer, and fruit and vegetables in winter. He particularly relished flowers, seeking to capture on the canvas the subtle nuances of colour and the delicacy of their form. ‘Flowers’, he once exclaimed, ‘how wonderful they are’ (Peploe, quoted in G. Peploe, S.J. Peploe, Farnham, 2012, p. 121). As Stanley Cursiter has written, ‘When Peploe 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 the protestations of ripeness or flavour’ (S. Cursiter, Peploe, London, 1947, p. 55). The soft, bountiful blooms of roses in particular provided endless inspiration for Peploe as he captured the subtle tonal nuances and fragility of these flowers. Unlike Edouard Manet however, whose late flower still lifes were a poignant musing on the ephemerality of life, for Peploe this motif was a means of exploring the formal concerns of painting.
The compositional devices in Roses in a vase against an orange background were favoured by Peploe in a number of his paintings. The books were said to be a selection of Peploe’s favourite French paperbacks that he had bought from the booksellers on the Left Bank in Paris before the war (G. Peploe, ibid., p. 139) and appear throughout the artist’s still life compositions, used for their solidity and mass, in contrast to the delicate ephemerality of the blooms that appear alongside them. An oval mirror – a pictorial device that the artist used in a number of his paintings – adorns the orange background of the scene, its curving edges contrasting with the geometric lines of the tabletop and fan. Cut off by the top of the picture plane, the reflection, unlike the naturalistic representation of the rest of the picture, does not appear to depict a readable image. Instead, it is made up of bands of flat colour that appears almost abstract in its design. Each part of this composition has been carefully considered and scrutinised by Peploe. Like the 20th Century Italian artist, Giorgio Morandi, who similarly created numerous still life scenes from a small, select group of pictorial protagonists, Peploe remained dedicated to the depiction of reality, seeking to create the perfect still life painting. Simultaneously combining colour and form in a simple yet deeply elegant symbiosis, Roses in a vase against an orange background demonstrates Peploe’s exceptional talent and his ability at creating symphonic still life paintings from the simplest of means.
Painted circa 1925, Roses in a vase against an orange background is a radiant still life painting by the famed Scottish Colourist, Samuel John Peploe. Renowned for his elegant, colour-filled still life compositions, Roses in a vase against an orange background is particularly rare amongst this mature series, distinctive due to the glowing orange colour of the background. This vibrant tone is repeated in the foreground of the composition, complementing the deep blue of the tabletop and unifying the scene as a whole. Indeed, the composition is complex, its components skilfully orchestrated by the artist to create a completely harmonious image.
One of a series of floral still lifes that Peploe painted throughout the 1920s, Roses in a vase against an orange background features one of the most iconic motifs of the artist’s career: a bouquet of roses. As the 1920s progressed studies of roses, as well as tulips, began to dominate Peploe’s work. In 1920, Peploe’s great friend, the fellow colourist painter, Francis Cadell had invited him to stay on Iona, a small island off the West coast of Scotland. Peploe fell in love with this rural retreat and returned year after year, painting the windswept landscape and roiling Atlantic sea. From this point onwards, Peploe’s work fell into two distinct groups: the expressive landscapes of Iona and the carefully constructed still-lifes that he painted in his studio, of which Roses in a vase against an orange background is one.
Peploe’s flower pictures followed the seasons: he painted tulips in the spring, roses in the summer, and fruit and vegetables in winter. He particularly relished flowers, seeking to capture on the canvas the subtle nuances of colour and the delicacy of their form. ‘Flowers’, he once exclaimed, ‘how wonderful they are’ (Peploe, quoted in G. Peploe, S.J. Peploe, Farnham, 2012, p. 121). As Stanley Cursiter has written, ‘When Peploe 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 the protestations of ripeness or flavour’ (S. Cursiter, Peploe, London, 1947, p. 55). The soft, bountiful blooms of roses in particular provided endless inspiration for Peploe as he captured the subtle tonal nuances and fragility of these flowers. Unlike Edouard Manet however, whose late flower still lifes were a poignant musing on the ephemerality of life, for Peploe this motif was a means of exploring the formal concerns of painting.
The compositional devices in Roses in a vase against an orange background were favoured by Peploe in a number of his paintings. The books were said to be a selection of Peploe’s favourite French paperbacks that he had bought from the booksellers on the Left Bank in Paris before the war (G. Peploe, ibid., p. 139) and appear throughout the artist’s still life compositions, used for their solidity and mass, in contrast to the delicate ephemerality of the blooms that appear alongside them. An oval mirror – a pictorial device that the artist used in a number of his paintings – adorns the orange background of the scene, its curving edges contrasting with the geometric lines of the tabletop and fan. Cut off by the top of the picture plane, the reflection, unlike the naturalistic representation of the rest of the picture, does not appear to depict a readable image. Instead, it is made up of bands of flat colour that appears almost abstract in its design. Each part of this composition has been carefully considered and scrutinised by Peploe. Like the 20th Century Italian artist, Giorgio Morandi, who similarly created numerous still life scenes from a small, select group of pictorial protagonists, Peploe remained dedicated to the depiction of reality, seeking to create the perfect still life painting. Simultaneously combining colour and form in a simple yet deeply elegant symbiosis, Roses in a vase against an orange background demonstrates Peploe’s exceptional talent and his ability at creating symphonic still life paintings from the simplest of means.