The Scottish Colourists Dovecot Studios Edinburgh Exhibition Review 6th February 2025
The Scottish Colourists: Radical Perspectives at Dovecot Studios, 10 Infirmary Street Edinburgh is a unique chance to view the work of some of Scotland’s most loved painters in their broader context of how they fit into wider European art movements.
This exhibition runs from 07 February to 28th June 2025 and, as you would expect, it has a heavy focus on the four painters considered by many people to be the nucleus of this movement - S J Peploe (1871-1935), J D Fergusson (1874-1961), G L Hunter (1877-1931) and F C B Cadell (1883-1937). Here, this carefully curated exhibition by Dovecot Studios in partnership with The Fleming Collection looks not only at the Scottish Colourists movement and its history, but also the friendships between many of the artists featured and how many of them individually and collectively became the artistic bridges between European and British/Scottish art movements of the late 19th century and the early decades of the 20th century.
Walking around this exhibition was, for me, a little bit joining the dots together of art history as the works of art on display and their narratives show the connections between the Scottish Colourists and the French Impressionist/Post Impressionist and Fauvist movement and how clearly this love of bold and striking colours inspired many of these artists who were also making regular artistic pilgrimages to France (and other European countries) to capture in their work the spectacular light of landscapes and towns. Also shown in this exhibition is the often missed connection between the Colourists and more avant-garde art movements, including cubism.
In this exhibition we are presented with works by not only the Scottish artists, but also Welsh, Irish and English colourists, and the political art divide between them at times makes for interesting reading.
Whatever their subject matter though, be it landscapes, street scenes, still life, portraits, or just the capturing of mundane daily events on canvas, the range of techniques, textures and draughtsmanship used in these paintings was frequently at the cutting edge of artistic tastes of the day. There is now, even some 100 years later (or more) since many of these works were originally created. little to match them in their boldness of colour, and often the deliberate use of colour opposites to give stark contrasts are still as relevant today as they ever were.
There are more than a few surprises in this exhibition and they should be left for those that plan to visit it and not given away in this review.
Review by Tom King © 2025
www.artsreviewsedinburgh.com
This exhibition runs from 07 February to 28th June 2025 and, as you would expect, it has a heavy focus on the four painters considered by many people to be the nucleus of this movement - S J Peploe (1871-1935), J D Fergusson (1874-1961), G L Hunter (1877-1931) and F C B Cadell (1883-1937). Here, this carefully curated exhibition by Dovecot Studios in partnership with The Fleming Collection looks not only at the Scottish Colourists movement and its history, but also the friendships between many of the artists featured and how many of them individually and collectively became the artistic bridges between European and British/Scottish art movements of the late 19th century and the early decades of the 20th century.
Walking around this exhibition was, for me, a little bit joining the dots together of art history as the works of art on display and their narratives show the connections between the Scottish Colourists and the French Impressionist/Post Impressionist and Fauvist movement and how clearly this love of bold and striking colours inspired many of these artists who were also making regular artistic pilgrimages to France (and other European countries) to capture in their work the spectacular light of landscapes and towns. Also shown in this exhibition is the often missed connection between the Colourists and more avant-garde art movements, including cubism.
In this exhibition we are presented with works by not only the Scottish artists, but also Welsh, Irish and English colourists, and the political art divide between them at times makes for interesting reading.
Whatever their subject matter though, be it landscapes, street scenes, still life, portraits, or just the capturing of mundane daily events on canvas, the range of techniques, textures and draughtsmanship used in these paintings was frequently at the cutting edge of artistic tastes of the day. There is now, even some 100 years later (or more) since many of these works were originally created. little to match them in their boldness of colour, and often the deliberate use of colour opposites to give stark contrasts are still as relevant today as they ever were.
There are more than a few surprises in this exhibition and they should be left for those that plan to visit it and not given away in this review.
Review by Tom King © 2025
www.artsreviewsedinburgh.com