JOHN MACLAUCHLAN MILNE
Edinburgh 1885 - 1957 Glasgow
Ref: CD 119
St Tropez
Signed lower left: Maclauchlan Milne
Oil on canvas: 23 ¾ x 28 ¾ in / 60.3 x 73 cm
Frame size: 31 x 36 in / 78.7 x 91.4 cm
In a full pastel frame with a carved raking top edge
Painted circa 1924-31
Provenance:
Miss Adelaide Boyd, Dundee, purchased in the 1930s, then by descent to Timothy Rait
John Maclauchlan Milne’s St Tropez brilliantly evokes the warmth, light and beautiful landscape of the Mediterranean coastline. Though renowned for its harbour on the Côte d’Azur between Marseille and Nice, Milne’s glorious landscape looks down on the picturesque rooftops of the town and across the shimmering blue of the Golfe. With bold delineation and strong areas of rich colour, Milne skilfully combines nature and architecture in his confident and sophisticated design. With layers of light and dark, warm and cool, Milne contrasts the deep blue of the water and rich green of the trees with the soft pastel-coloured buildings with terracotta tiled roofs and the sun-drenched, ochre earth.
Milne served in northern France and Belgium during the First World War, but did not visit the South of France until 1924, painting in locations such as St Tropez, Cassis and St Paul de Vence along the Riviera until 1931.[1] The importance of France to Milne’s development, in terms of subject and style, was noted in reviews at the time. In an article in the Dundee Courier in 1925, entitled ‘Glimpses of the Riviera’, the author writes: ‘It is difficult keeping pace with Mr Maclauchlan Milne. A year ago he was painting Scottish hairst fields with soft sunlight and mellow atmosphere. Then Paris seized him, and he gave us canvases splashed with vivid colour, radiating gaiety and the joy of life. Now he has drank “a beaker full of the warm South,” and has brought back from the azure shore pictures that palpitate with hot sunlight and dazzle with their audacious colour.’[2]
[1] See Maurice N Millar, The Missing Colourist: The Search for John Maclauchlan Milne RSA, 2022, pp.78-84.
[2] ‘Art Exhibition in Dundee: Glimpses of the Riviera’, Dundee Courier, 31st March 1925, p.9.
