Still Life with Roses in an Interior

‘When hand, eye and imagination come together – no matter how fortuitous it might seem or look – Hunter was rarely equalled’ (R. Billcliffe, The Scottish Colourists, London, 1989, p. 45).

Hunter remained fascinated by the subject of still life throughout his career. Hunter’s early work had looked towards the Dutch Masters for inspiration but these rather tentative explorations were superseded by the colour and vitality of the Fauves and particularly Henri Matisse.

In 1923 Hunter exhibited in London for the first time alongside S.J. Peploe and F.C.B. Cadell, to great acclaim and later that year, again very successfully, with Alex Reid and Lefevre in Glasgow. With this success came financial security, which allowed him to travel widely on the Continent. During this period Hunter visited Florence, Venice, Paris and the South of France, later settling at Saint-Paul-de-Vence, with a studio overlooking the Provençal landscape, a picturesque setting with its floral valleys and scented fields. Hunter recorded, 'I like this country very much … I have been in St Paul a week and have just got into a new little studio … where I can paint still life as well as landscape. Still life that is different from in Glasgow. Fruit is just coming on and flowers are abundant. This is a painter’s country' (G.L. Hunter, quoted in B. Smith & J. Marriner, Hunter Revisited – The Life and Art of Leslie Hunter, Edinburgh, 2012, p. 131).

Hunter’s time in France spurned a particularly active period of intense experimentation for the artist, when his work became revitalised by the warmth and light of his Mediterranean surroundings. This inspiration is evident in Still Life with Roses in an Interior in the vitality of his tones and the energy and expressionistic nature of his brushstrokes. Hunter wrote of aspiring for three elements in his paintings: 'energy, freshness and masterly disposition, the three elements that mark the classic', all of which are evident in the present work. This particular interest in colour was noted by critics of the day who stated, ‘Mr Hunter’s strongest point is his colour, which is gay and attractive attaining a luscious brilliancy … he is one of those artists in whom style and spontaneity play a large part’ (quoted in T. J. Honeyman, Three Scottish Colourists, London, 1950, p. 108). This was supported by Hunter, who wrote in his notebook, 'everyone must choose his own way, and mine will be the way of colour' (G.L Hunter, quoted in ibid., p. 103).

Here Hunter became increasingly inspired by the work of Paul Cézanne and more importantly Henri Matisse, who taught him about the sheer exuberance of colour. He understood that Matisse was not merely reproducing what he saw before him but rather his emotional response to the chosen subject. It was this use of colour to communicate his own personal emotions to the subject that Hunter strived for and which can be seen in the present work. The work of Matisse gave him the language to express himself, however the narratives that Hunter subsequently constructed were unmistakably his own. Indeed when Hunter exhibited in New York in 1929, the critic for the New York Evening Post commented that ‘it would be difficult not to think of Matisse at first viewing the exhibition. Yet after looking at it longer one sees that there has been an influence of Matisse, but that here is a new individual palette and personality’.