Exhibition of Scottish Colourist to go on show at Scottish gallery after 'two years of detective work'

Now an exhibition of more than 70 paintings and works by Samuel Peploe - some of which have not been seen in public for 90 years - is to go on display at Kirkcudbright Galleries, in the town which he fondly painted many times.

Colour: The Palette of SJ Peploe, brings together work from public and private collections, offering a fresh and intimate perspective on the artist’s enduring legacy. It also includes a selection of personal material lent by the Peploe family, offering further insight into the artist’s life and working practice.

Born in Edinburgh and initially apprenticed to a lawyer, Peploe studied art in Paris and lived there from 1910 to 1912. He later became one of the four painters known as the Scottish Colourists, alongside John Duncan Fergusson, Francis Cadell and Leslie Hunter.

Curated by Amanda Herries, the exhibition, which will run from 6 June to 4 October, is the result of over two years of research, planning, and collaboration and includes work not put on public display since Peploe’s memorial exhibition in 1936. It explores the defining themes of Peploe’s career, from his emergence as a modernist to his celebrated still life, landscapes and portraits, tracing the development of a painter whose bold use of colour and form transformed Scottish art in the early twentieth century.

Ms Herries said: “We are absolutely delighted to have brought together over 70 works by Samuel Peploe. It has been two years of planning, detective work, fundraising, and preparation. The exhibition offers a rare opportunity to see the breadth of his achievement and to explore the clarity, discipline, and beauty of his painting.”

Guy Peploe, the artist’s grandson and a leading authority on his work, has played a central role in the project and will give the opening lecture on 6 June. A former managing director of Edinburgh’s The Scottish Gallery, Scotland’s oldest independent gallery, which represented Peploe and supported his career, he continues a long family and professional association with Peploe’s legacy.

To accompany the exhibition, Kirkcudbright Galleries has commissioned The Scottish Gallery Press to produce a small-format hardback publication. The publication features new insights by Guy Peploe alongside texts and archive material drawn from The Scottish Gallery, offering a concise and visually rich exploration of the artist’s work.

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Christina Jansen, managing director of The Scottish Gallery, said: “This new publication sets out to reinforce Peploe’s accomplishment as a painter working in vibrant colour. His painting demonstrates an extraordinary clarity of purpose: the rigour of still life composition, daring portraits, landscapes true to time and place, with a palette pushed to its expressive limits. Peploe’s vision remains undimmed: sensuous, controlled and yet daring. His work continues to speak directly to artists, collectors, and audiences today.”

In parallel, The Scottish Gallery will present Modern Masters: The Scottish Colourists and Wider Circle in July, a focused exhibition drawing on the gallery’s archives.