The Scottish Colourists: Radical Perspectives

In a landmark exhibition, Dovecot Studios, in partnership with The Fleming Collection, unveils The Scottish Colourists: Radical Perspectives — a bold re-evaluation of four of Scotland’s most celebrated modern artists. For the first time, this groundbreaking show places the works of SJ Peploe, JD Fergusson, GL Hunter, and FCB Cadell in direct conversation with their European, English, Irish, and Welsh contemporaries, offering a panoramic view of the international avant-garde from 1905 to the outbreak of the First World War.

Marking the centenary of the Colourists’ first UK group show in 1925, staged by visionary Glasgow dealer Alexander Reid, the exhibition also pays homage to their earlier debut in Paris the year before. While the Colourists are now widely acknowledged as pioneers of 20th-century Scottish art, this exhibition repositions them within a much broader cultural landscape — one in which they stood shoulder-to-shoulder with radical contemporaries across Europe.

Visitors will encounter Fauvist masterpieces by Henri Matisse and André Derain — including Derain’s 1906 work Pool of London, on loan from Tate — alongside key British innovators such as Vanessa Bell, Duncan Grant, and Walter Sickert. The show also highlights artists from Wales and Ireland, such as Augustus John, John Dickson Innes, and Roderic O’Conor, drawing a compelling “Celtic” thread of shared sensibility in the expression of colour and form.

Andre Derain, ‘Pool of London’ (1906). Image courtesy of The Tate

Equally powerful is the exhibition’s recovery of overlooked women artists from this period. Figures like Anne Estelle Rice, Margaret Morris, and Jessica Dismorr — once central to the bohemian circles of Peploe and Fergusson in pre-WWI Paris — are brought back into focus as essential contributors to this international colour revolution.

Spanning an ambitious timeline that stretches into the 1920s and 30s, Radical Perspectives charts the evolution of the Colourists from individuals working within a vibrant European avant-garde to a unified artistic force shaped by both French innovation and the unique Scottish light. Their luminous still lifes, landscapes, and interior scenes bear witness to a synthesis of influences that redefined the language of modern painting.

John, Augustus Edwin; The Blue Pool; Aberdeen Art Gallery & Museums

This exhibition is more than a celebration — it’s a provocation. It invites us to question long-held assumptions about who the real radicals of early modern British art were and where the boundaries of influence truly lay.

By purchasing a ticket, visitors also support the work of Dovecot Studios and its mission to preserve and promote the rich tradition of tapestry in Scotland.

Don’t miss this transformative journey through one of the most colourful and complex chapters in European art history.

The exhibition is open until June 28.