§ ANNE REDPATH O.B.E., R.S.A., A.R.A., L.L.D., A.R.W.S., R.O.I., R.B.A. (SCOTTISH 1895-1965) MARGUERITES IN A WHITE VASE Oil on canvasboard (61cm x 51cm (24in x 20in)) Provenance: Acquired from The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh in 1965 and thence by descent to the present owner Exhibited: The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh, Anne Redpath, 19 November - 4 December 1965, no. 20 Lyon & Turnbull, Glasgow, Select Works by Anne Redpath and Joan Eardley from Private Collections, 16 March - 10 April 2015 Note: This painting dates from c.1964 As the undisputed matriarch of Edinburgh’s art world after World War Two, Redpath’s mature career was characterised by a pattern of regular solo and group exhibitions in Edinburgh, London and elsewhere. Her professional standing continued to grow, not least by becoming the first Scottish woman artist to be elected an Associate member of the Royal Academy of Arts in London in 1960 and with the acquisition of her painting, Landscape at Kyleakin, by the newly established Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in 1962 (GMA 814). Redpath remained as active as ever in the affairs of institutions such as Edinburgh College of Art, the Society of Scottish Artists and the Royal Scottish Academy, on whose council she served four times between 1953 and 1962. As a result, she was aware of, if not directly involved in, the presentation of contemporary European art in the annual group exhibitions staged in the Scottish capital, including the work of Georges Braque, Oskar Kokoschka and Nicolas de Staël. This keeping abreast of developments in Continental painting can be seen in the expressive handling of paint in the late work Marguerites in a White Vase. Deploying her material and using a palette - based on harmonious tones of white, blue and grey with brightly coloured highlights - as only an artist of great experience and technical ability could achieve, it is an example of the still life genre infused with joie de vivre for which she is renowned. Redpath explained about her works of this period: ‘I think I have always been interested, for instance, in the textural quality of paint and painting and while, in a way they are more abstract to see than they were before, yet they are still quite real and I don’t think they ever will be completely lost in abstraction.’ (quoted by Alice Strang, Queen of Edinburgh: Anne Redpath and her Circle, lecture given at the Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh on 24 January 2023). Moreover, Terence Mullay declared in his review of her solo exhibition at the Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh in 1960: ‘Anne Redpath’s latest exhibition…confirms her position as one of the finest painters to-day…[Her work]…provides an admirable example of how paint can be handled with enormous verve and can be all the more exciting for being closely controlled…Above all, it is her use of colour that is so moving… Her painting appeals both to the emotions and to the head.’ (Daily Telegraph and Morning Post, 25 August 1960, p. 19) Redpath’s death in 1965 was marked in multiple ways, including memorial displays and exhibitions were mounted by the Royal Scottish Academy, Scottish Gallery and Scottish Art Club. The Scottish Committee of the Arts Council of Great Britain mounted a major touring memorial exhibition of eighty-six works, which opened in Edinburgh later that year, as did an exhibition at the Scottish Gallery in which Marguerites in a White Vase was shown; it was acquired from there by the painting’s previous owner.