John Duncan Fergusson: Painter born in Perthshire in 1874. Fergusson took up painting after studying Medicine. He is part of the Scottish Colourists Group that includes Samuel John Peploe and Francis Cadell. The Colourists came out of the Glasgow School of Painting with the mantra of the importance of colour over line. Fergusson travelled to North Africa, Spain (1897) and Paris ; where he lived prior to the First World War. His exposure to the Mediterranean light and landscape, Post-Impressionism and Faures influenced his work. Of note are his WWI naval dockyard paintings and his female nudes (which tend towards Cezanne, Cubism and Fauve colour). Fergusson also creates his own style in his paintings by his relation to dance, movement and rhythm. Fergusson married the dancer Margaret Morris in 1939, and settled in Glasgow.
“The Fergusson Gallery houses the world’s largest collection of work by the celebrated Scottish Colourist artist John Duncan Fergusson (1874 – 1961). The extensive collection of paintings, drawings and sculptures is shown in a programme of changing exhibitions.The Gallery is housed in a former Water Works dating from 1832. The unusual building was converted to The Fergusson Gallery in 1992.”