We would like to announce the countdown towards our J.D. Fergusson exhibition which opens on Wednesday the 4th of December.

Looking back on the life and oeuvre of John Duncan Fergusson and in anticipation of the exhibition to open shortly at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art we can see a painter of exceptional talent who was true to his artistic ideals. He was a man with an uncompromising vision of what it meant to be an artist: emotional truth was paramount and the artist’s difficult purpose was to reveal this truth in light.

It is exactly 90 years since J D Fergusson’s first solo exhibition at The Scottish Gallery. Most aspects of his life and work are represented in this latest exhibition. We include examples of his sculpture and drawings from a newly discovered sketchbook from 1904 to 1905, containing mostly café studies, but also a few touching representations of family and friends.

A portrait of Margaret and Willy Peploe is also included, painted after Fergusson’s second visit to Cassis in 1931. We are delighted to include two of the ‘Highland’ works. These powerful, rhythmic mountain paintings express the artist’s sense of a Celtic past, as a son of Caledonia.

The huge ground swell of interest in The Scottish Colourists reaches a climax with the National Gallery show this winter and our exhibition recognises the primary role that The Scottish Gallery has played in this vital strand of Scottish culture. Peploe, Fergusson, Hunter and Cadell were all represented by The Scottish Gallery in their lifetimes and we have played a major part in promoting their reputations.