The 1931 Paris exhibition 'Les Peintres Ecossais' (The Scottish Painters) was organised by the artist John Duncan Fergusson (1874–1961) and London-based art dealers Reid & Lefèvre at the invitation of the French Galerie Georges Petit.

It was a sensational success, prompting artist George Leslie Hunter to exclaim 'What about prophets without honour?' – alluding to a Biblical passage in which Jesus says that prophets are not valued in their own houses.

This exhibition sheds a fascinating light on modern art at the time and on so many levels – and what a triumph it was.

Six Scottish artists – Fergusson, Samuel John Peploe (1871–1935), George Leslie Hunter (1877–1931), Francis Campbell Boileau Cadell (1883–1937), George Telfer Bear (1876–1973) and Ronald Ossory Dunlop (1894–1973) – presented 51 paintings and seven pieces of sculpture to an international audience. Some of these works are now in public collections in the UK, France and elsewhere.

The idea of showing modern Scottish art again in Paris had been on J. D. Fergusson's mind since 1924 when he persuaded Glasgow art dealer Alexander Reid (1854–1928) to do just that at the Galerie Barbazanges.

Featuring the four Colourists – Fergusson, Peploe, Cadell and Hunter – together for the first time, the 1924 exhibition was opened by the British Ambassador to France and attracted considerable attention. Significantly the French government bought a painting of Iona by Peploe.

By 1931, much in the world had changed. At a time of global economic turndown, the exhibition would have to defy the odds on many fronts. A year and a half after the 1929 Wall Street Crash, financial insecurity was cutting deeply across all walks of life. British art was rarely shown abroad to the point The Times felt the need to comment that this occasion 'deserves to be recorded.'

The well-publicised international reputations of Fergusson, Peploe and Hunter, or the celebrity of Cadell as brother of the actress Jean Cadell, provided no guarantee for success.

Samuel John Peploe (1871–1935), Artist, Self Portrait

Above all, deeply entrenched conservative attitudes and resistance in Britain to the modern movement made this a brave choice of artwork. Would France be any different? After all, French art had over 50 years' experience with far-reaching new movements, notwithstanding the numerous outstanding artists in Paris in 1931.

Despite Fergusson's long-standing camaraderie and status among French avant-garde artists such as Pablo Picasso, even Reid & Lefèvre's director Alexander McNeill Reid (1893–1972, son of the art dealer) was sceptical. Of Fergusson's painting, La Déesse de la Rivière (The Goddess of the River) McNeill Reid commented, 'Well you'll never sell that picture.'

1928, oil on canvas by John Duncan Fergusson (1874–1961)

He was proved completely wrong, however, when it was bought on the opening day by the French State and hung in the Luxembourg, as related by Margaret Morris (1891–1980), Fergusson's partner.

Modern colour and form lie at the heart of this exhibition – 'form' that is a particular way in which a thing exists or appears as opposed to 'looks'. Colour, line and pattern are the means to extracting the fundamentals, not the effect of light – a good example being Cadell's The Green Bottle from the 1920s.

In terms of risk, Fergusson, Peploe, Cadell and Hunter had accumulated years of experience and exposure but not so for Greenock-born Telfer Bear and London-based Dunlop, who was of Irish and Scottish parentage. Could their work stand up to French scrutiny?

Telfer Bear was of a similar age to the other Colourists and had a steady, local career, his art initially influenced by the Glasgow Boys and James Abbot McNeill Whistler (1834–1903). Nevertheless, in Paris his individual style was recognised and praised in The Scotsman for 'distinction of line, flat colouring, and absence of hardness [that] produce effects at once reposeful and penetrating.'

Modern colour and form were on full display – The Morning Post considered his En Visite and Le Gant Verte to have 'singular charm'. The title En Visite was a subtle indication, not that the young lady in question was a visitor, but she was in the act of visiting. As with these two paintings, La Jeunesse also demonstrates these qualities.

Reid & Lefèvre's Glasgow gallery also held a successful solo exhibition of Telfer Bear to coincide with the Paris show. There were several landscapes including The White Cottage, said by the Glasgow Herald to 'possess a freshness... expressed in colour schemes that have joyous and spring-like qualities.'

The critic went on to praise a painting called Emerald, extolling Telfer Bear's 'subtle and fine sense of colour, and to that he adds a distinctive sense of beauty and design... in which colour and pattern are closely-knit.' The description could equally apply to the Paris pictures.

Dunlop was younger and an emerging talent. Advance publicity in The Scotsman stated he was noted for his exciting handling and love of heavy pigment.

Dunlop's introduction in the catalogue informed that he led the Chelsea-based 'Emotionist' group of writers, artists and musicians. It was founded in 1923 with occasional visitors such as George Bernard Shaw and Aldous Huxley.

In Paris, Dunlop was classed alongside Fergusson with both artists having 'powerful technique and virility' in their respective style. Two still life paintings were striking and the self-portrait described as potent, according to the Morning Post.

Poppies and Autumn Street Scene are bold examples of Dunlop's work at the time, while Le Soir singled out Melita as one of the best paintings in the exhibition.

Risks aside, the potential for exhibition success came down to four important factors.

Firstly, the prestigious venue played its part. Galerie Georges Petit in the Rue de Sèze, once the leading gallery for French Impressionism, had ambitiously relaunched in 1930 as a hub for 'independent' painters, such as Georges Braque, Fernand Léger and Pablo Picasso.

Secondly, in Paris there was a strong American ex-pat presence. American artists and collectors were enthusiastically embracing the French Modern Movement. Peploe, Fergusson and Hunter had recently exhibited in the United States and with Hunter having growing up in California, it added to the appeal. Peploe's Mixed Fruit – Melon, Grapes and Apples is similar to paintings he exhibited at New York's C. W. Kraushaar Art Galleries in 1928.

Thirdly, weeks in advance the exhibition was announced with a flourish and enthusiastically covered daily in British, American and French newspapers for more than a fortnight. It is noteworthy too that each newspaper had their own correspondents in Paris. The Glasgow Herald praised this exhibition of 'remarkable paintings by Scotsmen rather than one of Scottish paintings. It is cosmopolitan rather than nationalist in the narrow sense of the word,' as Fergusson's Eastre and Fruits (No. 18 in the catalogue) demonstrates.

The Daily Express led the general reaction with 'Art Delusion Dispelled'. The Chicago Sunday Tribune said of the Scottish painters that their work 'deserves to be a success because it consists exclusively of honest, straightforward work, the expression of an optimistic spirit that is growing more and more rare in modern art as in modern life.'

The Continental Daily Mail ran the headline 'Brilliant Colouring and Sure Talent', while The Observer insisted these artists 'are all sufficiently lively and independent to destroy the notion prevalent in Paris that painters in these islands are all mentally and temperamentally sluggish.'

When it came to Fergusson's art, it was the much-discussed S.S. Transylvania Souvenir (also subtitled The Pink Box) that was repeatedly singled out for its style, luxury and statuesque treatment of the young woman and the fruit.

Glasgow News reported that Mountain Path, Thorenc (No. 14) was bold: 'Mountains not patches of colour, but as solid looking and as angular as the earth itself.'

Whereas the Continental Daily Mail said that Peploe's three still life pictures of roses had 'a brilliancy all their own and a freshness that the eye cannot forget, so exquisite is the sensitiveness to which they testify.'

Hunter's landscapes of Loch Lomond and Villefranche, portraits of Scottish philanthropist and collector D. W. T. Cargill (1872–1939) and international impresario C. B. Cochran (The Rehearsal) were much admired.

The portrait of Hunter and Fergusson's good friend John Ressich (1877–1937) is equal in colour, form and verve as the Cargill portrait. Both paintings were subsequently shown together in Glasgow's Reid & Lefèvre three months later.

1931, oil on canvas by George Leslie Hunter (1877–1931)

Of three still life paintings, one was of daffodils and fruit, and according to a letter in the National Library of Scotland from a frustrated buyer who missed their chance to acquire it, the pink asters in a still life 'have a rare quality'.

The New York Herald best summarised Hunter's art as 'intensely personal, with beautiful atmospheric qualities and luminosity.'

Cadell fared less well than the other five artists. Although the Glasgow Herald admired his pictures for the strength and clearness of his design in works like The Eagle Mirror and The White Shirt (No. 36 in the catalogue), The Times felt Cadell 'leaves rather a confused impression,' claiming that the pictures seemed to be works by different hands.

A possible explanation is found in Dr T. J. Honeyman's book, Three Scottish Colourists that in general, Cadell took pains to ensure that he would be represented by his best work which included putting up works already sold but which he thought important examples. The Studio and Lunga from Iona are examples close in date to The Eagle Mirror and Printemps, Iona in the Paris exhibition. The eight Paris pictures shown covered very different styles from across the decade from 1921 up to 1930.

Lastly, in terms of the exhibitions' success, there was the glittering opening with over 300 guests including British politicians, British, American and French socialites and collectors, celebrated actors, French aristocracy and two major French artists, Jean Lurçat and Raoul Dufy. All the stops were pulled out for the private view.

It was through Fergusson's partner, the dancer Margaret Morris, that the British Ambassador Lord Tyrrell offered to open the show – Morris was in Paris tutoring Tyrrell's daughter, Mrs Harriet Holman.

William George Tyrrell (1866–1947), Baron Tyrrell of Avon, Commoner (1885), Honorary Fellow (1930), British Ambassador in Paris (1928–1934)

Another friend of Fergusson and Morris, David Graham Pole MP secured a very welcome letter of support from the British Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald. The letter was printed as the exhibition catalogue foreword, widely distributed and quoted by the press as a significant endorsement.

The Chicago Sunday Tribune called it the 'artistic event of the day in Paris,' and declared, 'nothing is lacking to make it a really Parisian affair.' Philadelphia newspaper The Bulletin covering the grand opening featured a photograph of Lord Tyrrell, his daughter Mrs Holman, the Princess Bibesco (née Elizabeth Asquith, daughter of former Prime Minister Herbert Asquith), Fergusson, Reid & Lefèvre director Duncan Macdonald and a decidedly bohemian-looking Hunter.

The well-connected Princess Bibesco was no stranger to the art world – she had been painted by both Édouard Vuillard (1868–1940) and Augustus John (1878–1961).

c.1920, oil on cardboard by Édouard Vuillard (1868–1940)

The White Feather Boa (Lady Elizabeth Asquith, 1897–1945)

The correspondent of The Boulevardier, a magazine, published in Paris by Vanderbilt family member, bon viveur and writer Erskine Gwynne, captured the mood: 'So they took possession of the biggest room in the renovated George Petit Galeries and opened a show with great éclat last month... I say 'with éclat' because the vernissage was attented [sic] by many notable persons, and because there was a very large bar which functioned admirably.'

The size of the bar would be of great interest to American readers given the United States had already had over a decade of Prohibition by this point.

And what of the outcome? Sales were sensationally strong, especially for Fergusson and it was reported by several newspapers that Telfer Bear had one picture bought by a prominent collector.

Above all, validation – indeed vindication – came when the French Government bought three paintings, one each by Peploe, Fergusson and Hunter. The Sunday Times commented, 'French admiration expressed itself tangibly in State purchase, and some of the work was declared equal to the best of the French moderns.'

Of Déesse de la Rivière, the Glasgow Herald thought Fergusson's 'women, his statues, and his fruit are not only plastically coherent but also seem to have an inner spiritual coherence,' and Peploe's 'vital strength and solidity of his trees, in the two 'Paysages' are in a class with Derain.'

1929, oil on canvas by Samuel John Peploe (1871–1935)

Peploe could not believe it and sent his heartiest congratulations to Fergusson: 'I think we may fairly congratulate ourselves in the event. If I had been told in 1911, when we were in Paris, that I should have a picture in the Luxembourg, would I have believed it possible?'

The Daily Telegraph celebrated it as 'a signal honour for British artists, for the French committees of public galleries demand a high standard in their comparatively rare purchases of the works of foreign painters.'

As to the rarity of such purchases by the French state, in the same year they bought a strong, lustrous still life painting by John Maclauchlan Milne (1885–1957) from a London exhibition. Other than that, of British and Irish art, it seems very few: two by Augustus John (1878–1961) and one by Jack Butler Yeats (1871–1957).

Hunter's reaction, 'What about prophets without honour?' was right on point. The Loch Lomond painting dated from 1924, Cadell's The White Shirt from 1922, Peploe's Paysage from 1929 and Fergusson's Déesse de la Riviere from 1928.

By the end of the exhibition, The Sunday Times ably summarised the mood, 'Scots who deplored the decadence of Scottish art have had their eyes opened.'

For Hunter, Peploe and Fergusson it strengthened their international reputation. It brought well-earned French peer-recognition to all six artists. Within nine months Hunter was dead at 54, with Peploe and Cadell hardly far behind in 1935 and 1937 respectively.

Given the subsequent long lives and careers that Fergusson, Telfer Bear and Dunlop went on to have, it is fitting to quote notable art critic John Russell who captured the artistic spirit of that age, describing Fergusson in 1964, three years after his death:

'To spend an hour with someone so forthright and so open-minded, so infectious in his enthusiasm for the past and yet so attentive to a newcomer, was a lesson in how to live: and a lesson to be remembered with lasting affection.'

Learning of Hunter's death, Fergusson described him as a 'first class fellow' and specifically referred to Hunter's part in the 1931 exhibition: 'He at least succeeded in placing a painting in the Luxembourg to the Credit of Scots art, which he has helped tremendously.' In the same letter, referring to Hunter's lack of recognition in Scotland, Fergusson wrote, 'I'm not sorry that he's missing the mortification for which he was not in the least suited.'

Fergusson's passion and all six artists' legacy is epitomised by this brilliant, brave exhibition that heroically bucked all the trends.

Jill Marriner, art historian

Further reading

Stanley Cursiter, Peploe, An intimate memoir of an artist and of his work, Thos. Nelson & Sons, 1947

T. J. Honeyman, Introducing Leslie Hunter, Faber & Faber Ltd, 1937

T. J. Honeyman, Three Scottish Colourists – Peploe, Hunter, Cadell, Thos. Nelson & Sons, 1950

Margaret Morris, The Art of J. D. Fergusson, Blackie & Son Ltd 1974/J. D. Fergusson Art Foundation, 2010

National Library of Scotland, T. J. Honeyman Papers, ACC.9787

Bill Smith and Jill Marriner, Hunter Revisited: The Life and Art of Leslie Hunter, Atelier Books, 2012

J. D. Fergusson Archive, courtesy of Culture Perth & Kinross Museums and Galleries