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After serving in the Great War, Cadell returned to Iona with fellow painter and friend SJ Peploe every year from 1919 until 1932. Only requiring a small board for each sheet to be stretched, all his painting paraphernalia could be carried in a small bag as he went about the island. Any who have visited will attest any routes leaving the relative security of the machar are rough, rocky and dangerous, particularly around the North End. Here he has crossed the Island to the Atlantic coast, to Port Ban just north of the Bay at the Back of the Ocean. There is a deep, secluded bay and beautiful sandy beach divided by a rocky shoal in the centre. Cadell painted here many times including a well-known oil of the high rocky promontory behind the bay, the site of the iron age Dun Bhuirg. Here he has set up on the south of the bay on the tidal Eilan Didal looking north over the quiet waters of the best swimming beach on the island. The range of blues are highly characteristic, the waters reflecting the summer sky.
Cadell was twelve years younger than S.J. Peploe but just as precocious and was producing very capable watercolours and drawings in his early teens. Half French, he was taken to France and Munich by his mother for artistic education and some very fine, freely painted farmyard paintings date from this early period. Despite his sophistication, Cadell’s most natural habitat was the west Highlands, Iona in particular, and he made only a few painting trips to France after the War. He produced some of his most brilliant Colourist works while staying with the Peploes in Cassis in 1924. Very fashion conscious, his work before 1914 had an Edwardian opulence and breadth unique in Scottish painting. By the twenties his work had a hard edge with clear colour, chiming with the jazz-age, and the compositions have a deco stylishness full of sophistication of concept and originality of palette. He is as original and distinctive a voice as any in Scottish painting.
We have more available works by Cadell. Please contact the Gallery if you would like to arrange an appointment to view the works we currently have available for sale. Furthermore, should you have any work you would be interested in selling please do contact the Gallery on 0131 558 1200 or email Guy Peploe.
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