? GEORGE LESLIE HUNTER (SCOTTISH 1877-1931) PEONIES IN A BLUE AND WHITE VASE Signed, oil on canvas (61cm x 51cm (24in x 20in)) Provenance: The Fine Art Society Plc, London, Edinburgh and Glasgow, October 1987 (11383) Having lost most of his early work in the San Francisco earthquake of 1906, Hunter moved to Glasgow later that year and developed a distinct approach to still life painting that encompassed art history, a sophisticated use of colour and light and a sense of serenity, all of which can be seen in Peonies in a Blue and White Vase. Hunter soon became ensconced in Glasgow’s art world, including eventual election to Glasgow Art Club. His first solo exhibition in the city, held at Alexander Reid’s La Société des Beaux-Arts gallery in 1913 proved to be a professional breakthrough, with subsequent shows mounted there attracting not only positive press coverage but also sales. As the critic of The Bailie remarked in a review of his 1916 exhibition: ‘He has three or four examples of still life that are superlatively strong. Such work is bound to live, for they show a mastery of form and colour that takes one back to the triumphs of the Dutchmen.‘ (quoted in T. J. Honeyman, Introducing Leslie Hunter, Faber and Faber Ltd, London, 1937 p. 76). The subject matter and composition of Peonies in a Blue and White Vase, with the titular flowers set in contrast to a plain background, reveal Hunter’s interest in the Dutch Old Masters that he encountered during extensive visits to the cultural centres of Edinburgh, London and Paris, as well as in the public galleries of Glasgow. His rich technique, working ‘wet on wet’, layering up colours and tones to create form and suggest the play of light on petals and glaze recalls the work of Edouard Manet, whom he is known to have admired. Sophistication is the order of the day, in the asymmetrical arrangement of the flowers and the delicate placing of a single bloom in the foreground, in an image infused with tranquillity. It was with such still lifes that Hunter came to the fore before and during World War One and which were to provide the foundation of his reputation as one of Scotland’s leading artists of the twentieth century.