JOHN DUNCAN FERGUSSON R.B.A. (SCOTTISH 1874-1961)
BLONDE IN THE SOUTH
Signed, dated and inscribed ‘Paris 28 Nov. ’37' verso, further inscribed with title to contemporary label verso, oil on canvas
64cm x 54cm (25.25in x 21.25in)
Exhibited:The Fine Art Society Ltd, London, J. D. Fergusson 1874-1961, 10 September-4 October 1974, no.86 and tour to Kelvingrove Art Gallery & Museum, Glasgow, 12 October-3 November 1974 and The Fine Art Society Ltd, Edinburgh, 9 November-30 November 1974Lyon & Turnbull, Glasgow, John Duncan Fergusson: Selected Works from Private Collections, 4-28 February 2014Lyon & Turnbull, London, Colourists at Connaught, September 2017 
Fergusson’s love affair with the south of France really began in 1913, when he left Paris and moved to the then little-known Cap d’Antibes. He later explained “I had grown tired of the north of France; I wanted more sun, more colour; I wanted to go south, to Cassis.” (J. D. Fergusson, ‘Memories of Peploe’, Scottish Art Review, vol.viii, no.3, 1962, p.31) His future wife, Margaret Morris, visited him there for Christmas 1913 and during the summer of 1914. However, the outbreak of World War One prompted her return to London, where she had a dance school and theatre. Fergusson joined her in the English capital shortly afterwards, where he was to live until a return to Paris in 1929 for a further decade.Morris held her Summer School in Antibes for the first time in 1923 and, such was the couple’s love of the region, they returned there for many summers until a final visit in 1960, the year before Fergusson’s death. Blonde in the South encapsulates the sun-kissed, outdoor lifestyle that they enjoyed in the south of France, revelling in its climate, quality of light and natural beauty. Morris’s pupils danced barefoot on the beaches and in the forests and provided inspiration, subject matter and sitters for Fergusson, who captured their youth, beauty and joie de vivre in drawings and watercolours that, like Blonde in the South, he later worked up into fully-realised paintings in his studio. The 1930s was a propitious decade for Fergusson, not least with the acquisition of his painting La Déesse de la Rivière (River Goddess) by the French state in 1931. By 1936 Fergusson was President of Le Groupe d’Artistes Anglo-Américains, whilst four solo exhibitions in London meant he also maintained a high profile in Britain. Blonde in the South is infused with the optimism of much of Fergusson’s oeuvre. It combines his appreciation of beautiful women with his love of the south of France, where carefree summer months resulted in many of his most joyful paintings.