JOHN DUNCAN FERGUSSON R.B.A. (SCOTTISH 1864-1961)
MONTGERON
Signed, inscribed and indistinctly dated verso, oil on panel
27.5cm x 35cm (10.75in x 13.75)
Margaret Morris Fergusson, the Artist's widow;Private Collection, Scotland;Ewan Mundy Fine Art, Glasgow;Private Collection, Scotland.Exhibited: Duncan Miller Fine Arts, London, J. D. Fergusson: The Scottish Colourist, 22 June-8 July 2011, no.19 
This work is believed to date from 1909, a key year in Fergusson’s career. He exhibited at the Venice Biennale for the first time and moved to the inspiring environment of a new light and orderly studio, at 83 rue Notre Dame des Champs. Moreover, his involvement with the heady creativity of pre-World War One Paris was epitomised by election to the avant-garde Salon d’Automne that year.Montgeron is a commune some 19 kilometres to the south-east of Paris. Fergusson is known to have painted there during the summer of 1909. In this work he uses a favoured conceit of trees placed in the frontal plane to frame a scene within. Architecture is reduced to its geometric essence and planes of colour are outlined in black, showing the dramatic progress he had made since moving to Paris two years earlier. A larger version of this work, painted on canvas and dated 1909, is in the collection of Glasgow Life (Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, acc.no.3172).