Effulgence, c.1923

Born in Leith, J.D. Fergusson’s studies took him to Paris in the 1890s where he studied the Impressionists and attended the Academie Colarossi. He exhibited in London in 1905 and settled in Paris in 1907 working in a Fauvist style then later in a more Cubist manner. He had four works exhibited in Post-Impressionist and Futurist Exhibition in London in 1913. His first solo show in Scotland was in 1923 and followed by an exhibition with the three other Scottish Colourists, Peploe, Cadell and Hunter. The Colourists were very important in furthering the influence of certain aspects of continental Modernism on Scottish Painting.

We have further available works by JD Fergusson. Please contact the Gallery if you would like to arrange an appointment to view the works we currently have available for sale or to discuss any work you would be interested in selling.

[Fergusson] is a poet with an acute sense for the discipline of form. He has an instinct for the rhythm which makes sense out of a picture just as it informs the shape and meaning of a dance. His pictures and his sculptures seem to move with a musical rhythm. Robins Millar, Glasgow Evening Citizen, May 5th 1948

Born in Leith in Edinburgh, J.D. Fergusson’s studies took him to Paris in the 1890s where he attended the Académie Colarossi and made broad connections in avant-garde life. He exhibited in London in 1905 and finally settled in Paris in 1907 where he experimented with Fauvist and Cubist styles, became a Sociétaire of the Salon d’Automne and acquaintance of many of the leading figures in the movement, including Picasso and Braque. He had four works exhibited in Post-Impressionist and Futurist Exhibition in London, 1913. He lived between France and Britain, eventually settling in Glasgow with his life partner and the pioneering dancer Margaret Morris.

Everyone in Scotland should refuse to have anything to do with black or dirty and dingy colour, and insist on clean colours in everything. I remember when I was young any colour was considered a sign of vulgarity. Greys and blacks were the only colours for people of taste and refinement. Good pictures had to be black, grey, brown or drab. Well! Let’s forget it, and insist on things in Scotland being of colour that makes for and associates itself with light, hopefulness, health and happiness. J.D. Fergusson, Modern Scottish Painting, 1943

J. D. Fergusson & The Scottish Gallery 

J.D. Fergusson exhibited with The Scottish Gallery in 1923. The exhibition included both small-scale sculpture he had produced over the preceding few years and his Highland series of oil paintings, which represented the artist’s engagement with his native landscape and culture. Twenty years before, he had been one of the purchasers of work from his friend S.J. Peploe’s first exhibition with The Gallery, but in the intervening years he had looked to London and then Paris for his commercial and spiritual existence. It would only be after his second flight from the continent, in the face of WWII, that Scotland would take the central place in his work and thoughts. Fergusson was a paragon of the bohemian life and one of the major contributors to British modernism – uncompromising, Modernist and brilliant. A Memorial exhibition was held for Fergusson at The Scottish Gallery in 1961, and numerous exhibitions have been held since.