John Duncan Fergusson was one of the most significant Scottish painters of the early 20th century. Together with Samuel John Peploe, Francis Campbell Cadell and George Leslie Hunter, the ‘Scottish Colourists’ brought radical colour, fluidity and rhythmical compositions to traditional Scottish audiences, learned directly from the post-Impressionist movements in France. Their impact was not confined solely to Scotland, but to British circles more widely.

They were influenced most strongly by Fauvism, adopting its use of bold palettes, broken surfaces and dynamic movement – as seen in the present example. Fergusson and his contemporaries were not mere imitators arriving to the scene years later, as was often the case for European movements slowly making themselves felt in Britain; rather they were engaged in the avant-garde circles of the time, including Picasso and Matisse.

Fergusson made his first visit to Paris in the 1890s, and there witnessed the developments of contemporary French painting – ‘something new had started there and I was very much intrigued’. He trained at the Academie Julian in Paris and from 1900, meeting Peploe, the two regularly spent summers painting in Paris. In 1907, Fergusson re-located permanently to the city. ‘I immediately found there, what the French call an ‘Ambience’ – an atmosphere which was not only agreeable and suitable to work in, but in which it was impossible not to work!’ (Fergusson quoted in M. Morris, The Art of J. D. Fergusson, 1974, p.50)

The present work was painted in 1910 in St Palais, a seaside resort close to Royan on the southwest coast of France, where Fergusson was staying with the Peploes. Fergusson was drawn to bathing huts, appearing in several of his French works in the 1900s. Unlike earlier examples which share a greater debt to Manet in tone and fluidity, by 1910, the forms are tighter and bolder, more closely aligned to the The Fauves, as we see reflected in the present work: bathing huts, parasols and figures are boldly delineated, while the beach itself is a series of fragmented patchwork. Painted swiftly en plein air on small panels, these works exude the spirit of the time.

The painting was first retained within the collection of Fergusson’s wife Margaret Morris, an important modern dancer and teacher whose work was directly impacted by the latest developments in painting: ‘I first realised the absolute necessity of relating movement with form and colour when studying painting of the modern movement in Paris in 1913. From that time I incorporated it as one of the main studies in my school. In this connection I am deeply indebted to J D Ferguson. (Margaret Morris, 1925).

The Bathing Huts, St Palais is an exquisite example that exemplifies Fergusson’s critical place within British modernism at the turn of the 20th century.