Background
Fergusson was born in Leith, Scotland, United Kingdom, on March 9, 1874. He was the first of four children in the family.
Fergusson was born in Leith, Scotland, United Kingdom, on March 9, 1874. He was the first of four children in the family.
John Duncan Fergusson briefly trained as a naval surgeon. However, he soon realised that he wanted to devote his life to painting. So, Fergusson enrolled in the Trustees Academy, an Edinburgh-based art school, around 1893. He rapidly became disillusioned with the rigid teaching style and gave up his studies.
Fergusson travelled to Morocco, Spain and eventually France, in the 1890s. In Paris, he became acquainted with other artists of the day. Among them was Samuel Peploe, another of the group of artists who would later become associated with the Scottish Colourists.
At the beginning of his career, he was highly influenced by the impressionist paintings at the Salle Caillebotte. Later he became influenced by Fauvism and the fauvist principles of using colour would become a strong feature of his art. Between 1895 and 1907 he made repeated visits from his home in Edinburgh to France, working alongside with several key artists.
John Fergusson became part of the enormous growth in artistic talent in Paris at the beginning of the twentieth century. There he met with such artists as Matisse, Derain and Picasso in the café society for which the city was well-known. Moreover, he and his friend Samuel Peploe regularly painted together at the a seaside resort of Paris called "Plage" as well as other places along the coast between 1904-1909.
In 1913 Fergusson left Paris to settle on the French Mediterranean coast. By the onset of the First World War, Fergusson was considered to be at the forefront of modern British painting. However, during the war years, the artist achieved little as an artist and it was only towards the end of the war that he regained the impulse in his work. In August 1914 John Fergusson moved to London. His only notable artwork during the war was a series of paintings of the naval dockyard in Portsmouth, commissioned by the Government.
In the 1920s Fergusson settled in a studio in London. The artist created a series of Scottish landscapes after his visit in 1922. John Fergusson's first solo exhibition was held in 1923 and he was also involved in several important group shows. In 1928 he moved to Paris. Meanwhile, he had become a prominent member of a group of Scottish painters who were later to become known as the Scottish Colourists.
With the beginning of the Second World War in 1939, John Fergusson once more returned to Britain, this time settling in Glasgow. There he collaborated in the setting up of the New Art Club, which became a focus for artistic development amongst many Scottish artists.
In 1940 Fergusson became a founder of the New Art Club, out of which emerged the New Scottish Group of painters of which he was the first president. In 1943 his book on "Modern Scottish Painting" came out. He remained in Glasgow after the war, though each year he spent some time in France.
Before a Café: Paris
Anne Estelle Rice in Paris (Closerie des lilas)
Hortensia
Siesta
Alpes Maritimes
In the Sunlight
Woman in Hat
Le voile Persan
The Red Sail
Le Manteau Chinois
The Bridge and Schiehallion
Still Life: Teapot with Flowers and Fruit
Dark Sea and Red Sail
Café-Concert des Ambassadeurs
Gloxinias and Fuschias
The Breeze, Antibes
Bathing Boxes and Tents at St Palais
The Blue Lamp
People and Sails at Royan
Anne Estelle Rice
Still Life
The Royal Scottish Academy and the Scott Monument from Princes St Gardens
Fleurs
Étaples from the beach
Street in Cassis
The green bridge
Female Study
Eden Rock, Cap d'Antibes
Nude
Nude
Luxembourg Gardens
The Lower Place, Antibes
Portrait of Margaret Morris
Paris Plage
Quotes from others about the person
Andre Dunoyer de Segonzac: "His art [Fergusson] is a deep and pure expression of his immense love of life. Endowed with a rare plastic feeling, almost sculptural in its quality. He joined with it an exceptional sense of colour, outspoken, ringing colours, rich and splendid in their very substance."
Fergusson had an affair with the American illustrator Anne Estelle Rice in the 1900s, whom he encouraged to take up painting. She was then sent to Paris to provide drawings for articles on ballet, theatre, opera and race meetings published in the North American magazine and was featured in many of Fergusson's paintings.
In 1913 John Fergusson met a 22-year old English dancer, Margaret Morris, who was touring in Paris with her own dance company. The two fell in love and became true lifelong companions. After Fergusson's death, Margaret Morris established the JD Fergusson Art Foundation to look after a large collection of his artworks.