Piccadilly Circus, Night, 1902

Piccadilly Circus, Night is a small, vibrant panel and an important early example of Fergusson’s impressionism. He had worked on panel, on the spot, for some years, mostly in Edinburgh. In the proceeding years he made yearly visits to the Pas de Calais, often to Paris-Plage, Le Touquet sometimes with his friend S.J. Peploe. In 1907, he moved to Paris and continued to paint street scenes at night, recalling this earlier London example. Piccadilly was described by Charles Dickens Jr as …the great thoroughfare leading from the Haymarket and Regent-street westward to Hyde Park-corner, is the nearest approach to the Parisian boulevard of which London can boast. The Circus lost it circular form in the 1880s with the remodelling of the Regent Street Quadrant and the building of Shaftesbury Avenue. By the end of the 19th Century, it was the heart of theatre land, the brilliantly lit hub it remains today. The Alfred Gilbert statue of Anteros surmounts a fountain forming the Earl of Shaftesbury Memorial. Its delicate form is captured brilliantly by Fergusson with a few deft strokes grounding the location, highlighted against the lights of the buildings beyond. The bustle of humanity, indications of horsedrawn cars, the dirty gas light, all convey the atmosphere of excitement and the theatrical character of the architectural setting connected to the painter’s sense of possibility and change: a new century, the Edwardian era, new freedoms for artists willing to engage and respond. Dr James Ritchie, an important Edinburgh collector many of whose paintings are now held in the National collection, bought several paintings in Glasgow accompanied by Fergusson himself who, as Dr Ritchie recalled, paused in front of each work and said ‘Good Fergusson’. Guy Peploe