SAMUEL JOHN PEPLOE RSA
1871 - Edinburgh - 1935
Ref: CD 163
Tulips
Signed lower right: Peploe.
On the reverse is another painting: The White Strand, Iona
Oil on canvas: 20 x 16 in / 50.8 x 40.6 cm
Frame size: 28 ½ x 24 ¾ in / 72.4 x 62.9 cm
In a Louis XIV style carved and gilded frame
Painted circa 1928
Provenance:
Dr Robert A Lillie OBE, Glasgow
Aitken Dott & Son (The Scottish Gallery), Edinburgh [7307]
Christie’s Scotland, 6th December 1990, lot 227
Private collection, Scotland
Exhibited:
Edinburgh, Royal Scottish Academy, Festival Exhibition: Peploe, Cadell, Hunter, 1949, no.50
Edinburgh, The Scottish Arts Council Gallery, Scottish Paintings from the Collection of Dr RA Lillie OBE, 12th August-13th September 1969, no.19, illus.; this exhibition then travelled to Sheffield, Graves Art Gallery, 20th September-26th October 1969; Glasgow, The Scottish Arts Council Gallery, 1st-22nd November 1969; Aberdeen Art Gallery, 29th November-13th December 1969; Newcastle, Laing Art Gallery and Museum, 17th-31st January 1970; Perth Art Gallery and Museum, 7th-21st February 1970 and Dundee, City Art Gallery and Museum, 11th-25th April 1970
Peploe painted tulips throughout his career, from early experiments in Paris in the style of van Gogh, such as Tulips in a pottery vase, circa 1912 (The Hunterian, University of Glasgow) and Tulips – The blue jug, circa 1919 (National Galleries of Scotland), to later works including Tulips in a brown jar, 1933 (Aberdeen Archives, Gallery and Museums). Tulips, circa 1934 (private collection), is thought to have been the last work he painted. In spring 1935, Peploe wrote of tulips as having, ‘so many colours: orange, pink, different pinks, a strange one – pure brick red – which is my favourite; so sensitive to warmth; the tulip with the strange hot smell which seems to stir deep memories, long-forgotten cities in a desert of sand, blazing sky, sun that is a torment; mauve ones, cool and insensitive.’[1]
Peploe’s Tulips, 1926 (Tate Britain), was purchased for the British public in 1927, the year he was appointed a full member of the Royal Scottish Academy. The late 1920s were an important time for Peploe, 1928 being a particularly significant year. He held a solo show at Kraushaar Gallery, New York and closer to home, Kirkcaldy Museum and Art Gallery inaugurated their new extension by devoting a room to his work, the only living artist to be so honoured, demonstrating that Peploe was considered the finest artist working in Scotland.
This stunning arrangement of vibrant orange and soft pink tulips was previously owned by the eminent collector of Modern Scottish art, Dr Robert Lillie OBE.
[1] Letter of 31st January 1935 to Florence Drummond, cited in Elizabeth Cumming, ‘Exploring the Poetics of Form: The Post-War Paintings of SJ Peploe’, SJ Peploe, exh cat, National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh 2012, p.72.
