JD Fergusson

This title will accompany the major summer exhibition The Scottish Colourist: JD Fergusson at Pallant House Gallery from 5th July to 19th October 2014. Read more about the exhibition.

‘Mr Fergusson is the most stimulating and intriguing of this group of modern Scotsmen’

So wrote the art critic P. G. Konody about J. D. Fergusson, one of the four artists collectively known as ‘the Scottish Colourists’, the others being F.C.B. Cadell, G.L. Hunter and S.J. Peploe. Fergusson lived in Paris from 1907 until 1913 where, more than any of his Scottish contemporaries, he embraced and developed the latest advances in French painting by artists including Derain, Matisse and Picasso.

In 1913 Fergusson met the dance pioneer Margaret Morris, who became his life-long partner and provided inspiration for much of his work. Fergusson is most celebrated for depictions of the female form, but he also painted landscapes in England, France and Scotland, that were of great significance and exhibited sculptures for over thirty years.

On the outbreak of the Second World War, Fergusson and Morris settled in Glasgow, where they did much to galvanise the Scottish arts scene and where he died in 1961.

This book includes essays by Alice Strang, Elizabeth Cumming and Sheila McGregor which offer a fascinating new insight into a Scottish artist of international standing. This publication reasserts the artist’s place as a key figure in twentieth-century art.