Leslie Hunter
Encyclopedia
George Leslie Hunter commonly just called Leslie Hunter, was a self-taught Scottish
painter and one of the artists of the Scottish Colourists
school of painting. He spent much of his early life in California
, USA, but returned later to Scotland and traveled widely in Europe, especially in the South of France. Hunter painted a variety of still-lifes, landscapes and portraits in his life, and his paintings are critically acclaimed for their treatment of light and the effects of light. They were highly popular during his lifetime and have continued to command high prices since his death, and remain among the most popular in Scotland.
on the Isle of Bute
in 1877 but, when he was 13, his family emigrated to California. There he lacked exposure to the sort of art that influenced his contemporaries in the Scottish Colourists movement, such as John Duncan Fergusson
or Samuel John Peploe
, and began making a living primarily as a magazine illustrator. In 1902, Hunter became part of a group of artists that included Maynard Dixon
and Arthur Putnam
. They desired independence from the hierarchies of the establishment art world and, together, they formed the California Society of Arts as an alternative to the conservative San Francisco Art Association
.
where he was inspired by the numerous artistic attractions there to take up oil painting
. When he returned to San Francisco in 1905, he began preparing for his first solo exhibition, which was to be held the following year. However, Hunter's early work was destroyed in the fire that followed the 1906 San Francisco earthquake
, and he returned to Scotland shortly afterwards, settling in Glasgow
. Initially he continued to make his living there primarily as an illustrator. What painting he did was dominated by still-lifes on black backgrounds, influenced by the Dutch style.
Hunter only began to achieve fame after a trip to Étaples
in northern France in 1914. Here, inspired by French art and the local landscape, he began to develop the style and ability that would later identify him as a colourist. However, the onset of the First World War forced him to return to Scotland, where his work became noticed by Alexander Reid
of Reid & Lefevre. In 1915, Hunter held his first one-man exhibition with Reid in Glasgow. Hunter's work at this stage of his career focused primarily on still-lifes, inspired by Chardin
, Kalf
and Manet
. During the 1920s, Hunter began to be associated with a group of three other artists: John Duncan Fergusson, F. C. B. Cadell, and Samuel Peploe. The four of them became known as the Scottish Colourists, although the term was not used until 1948, by which time only Fergusson was still alive.
, Florence
and the Riviera
. Fergusson accompanied him on a number of these visits. Hunter's visits abroad produced a large number of paintings and his style changed noticeably in this period of European travel as he began using dabs of colour placed instinctively to portray underlying form.
When Hunter returned from his first series of trips abroad, in 1922, he settled in Fife
, on the east coast of Scotland and, between 1924 and 1927, he remained in Scotland, dividing his time between Fife and Glasgow. His paintings from this period include a number inspired by views of Loch Lomond
, and these landscapes increasingly took inspiration from the work of Cézanne to create colourful and atmospheric compositions. In 1925, Hunter's work was displayed at an exhibition in Leicester Square
in London, along with works by Peploe, Cadell and Fergusson. Walter Sickert
, in his introduction to the exhibition, wrote that "Hunter uses the refractory ... to inspired ends on normal and traditional lines".
Hunter traveled again to the South of France on a number of occasions between 1927 and 1929, and based himself at St Paul de Vence. He sent paintings back to Reid to be exhibited in Glasgow and London, but he spent a great deal of time sketching and his output of finished oil paintings was low. One exhibition in London had to be postponed due to a lack of paintings. The France trips culminated in 1929 with a critically acclaimed exhibition at the Feragil Galleries in New York.
in 1929, Hunter suffered a severe breakdown, forcing his sister to bring him home to Scotland in September. He recovered, and began to paint a number of portraits of his friends, including one of Dr Tom Honeyman
, the Director of the Glasgow Art Gallery and Museum
from 1939 until 1954. Honeyman, at the time an art dealer, had assisted Hunter in developing his career, and painting the portrait may have been a gesture of thanks.
In 1930 he embarked upon a series of drawings and watercolours of Hyde Park, which were due to be exhibited in London. Hunter hoped to move to the city permanently, as he found it livelier than Glasgow and the art market was more secure. However, his health deteriorated and he began to suffer badly from stomach pains. He died in Glasgow in 1931, aged 54, following an unsuccessful operation. A member of Glasgow Art Club
, work by Hunter was included in the club's Memorial Exhibition of 1935, in memory of those of its members who had died since the First World War.
Many years after his death, solo exhibitions of Hunter's paintings were still held and, in 1953, the display of a selection of watercolours and paintings in Glasgow attracted numerous visitors. The art critic of the Glasgow Herald described the "varied and uneven genius" of the painter, and praised one painting as having been executed with "such a freedom and economy of touch one cannot well see how any amount of extra thought or technical application could have bettered it."
Paintings by Hunter have gone on to sell for large sums in the early 21st century, with one painting described as the "star lot" in a Bonhams
auction in June 2010 selling for £144,000. Another painting was sold in June 2010 for £78,000. Nick Curnow, head of pictures at Lyon & Turnbull
, said of it "This is a very special painting, so typical of Hunter."
to produce domestic landscapes. Later, however, in common with the other members of the Scottish colourists movement, he was heavily influenced by contemporary French artists like Monet
and Matisse
, and his paintings began to make bolder and more energetic use of colour.
Hunter particularly strove to capture in his paintings the effects of light, and would repeatedly paint the same objects or locations under a range of lighting conditions. His brush style was influenced by the French avant garde and, especially in his later work, is described by art critics as '"open and free" and "energetic".
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
painter and one of the artists of the Scottish Colourists
Scottish Colourists
The Scottish Colourists were a group of painters from Scotland whose work was not very highly regarded when it was first exhibited in the 1920s and 1930s, but which in the late 20th Century came to have a formative influence on contemporary Scottish art....
school of painting. He spent much of his early life in California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
, USA, but returned later to Scotland and traveled widely in Europe, especially in the South of France. Hunter painted a variety of still-lifes, landscapes and portraits in his life, and his paintings are critically acclaimed for their treatment of light and the effects of light. They were highly popular during his lifetime and have continued to command high prices since his death, and remain among the most popular in Scotland.
Early life and San Francisco
Hunter was born in RothesayRothesay, Argyll and Bute
The town of Rothesay is the principal town on the Isle of Bute, in the council area of Argyll and Bute, Scotland. It can be reached by ferry from Wemyss Bay which offers an onward rail link to Glasgow. At the centre of the town is Rothesay Castle, a ruined castle which dates back to the 13th...
on the Isle of Bute
Isle of Bute
Bute is an island in the Firth of Clyde in Scotland. Formerly part of the county of Buteshire, it now constitutes part of the council area of Argyll and Bute. Its resident population was 7,228 in April 2001.-Geography:...
in 1877 but, when he was 13, his family emigrated to California. There he lacked exposure to the sort of art that influenced his contemporaries in the Scottish Colourists movement, such as John Duncan Fergusson
John Duncan Fergusson
John Duncan Fergusson was a Scottish artist, regarded as one of the major artists of the Scottish Colourists school of painting.- Early life :...
or Samuel John Peploe
Samuel Peploe
Samuel John Peploe was a Scottish Post-Impressionist painter, noted for his still life works and for being one of the group of four painters that became known as the Scottish Colourists...
, and began making a living primarily as a magazine illustrator. In 1902, Hunter became part of a group of artists that included Maynard Dixon
Maynard Dixon
Maynard Dixon was a 20th-century American artist whose body of work focused on the American West. He was married for a time to American photographer Dorothea Lange.-Biography:...
and Arthur Putnam
Arthur Putnam
Arthur Putnam was an American sculptor from the turn of the 20th century who is recognized for his bronzes of wild animals and public monuments. He was a well-known Californian during his days in California and enjoyed a national reputation as well...
. They desired independence from the hierarchies of the establishment art world and, together, they formed the California Society of Arts as an alternative to the conservative San Francisco Art Association
San Francisco Art Association
The San Francisco Art Association was an organization that promoted California artists, held art exhibitions, published a periodical, and established an art school. Over its lifetime, the association helped establish a Northern California regional flavor of California Tonalism as differentiated...
.
Early career
In 1904, Hunter made a visit to ParisParis
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
where he was inspired by the numerous artistic attractions there to take up oil painting
Oil painting
Oil painting is the process of painting with pigments that are bound with a medium of drying oil—especially in early modern Europe, linseed oil. Often an oil such as linseed was boiled with a resin such as pine resin or even frankincense; these were called 'varnishes' and were prized for their body...
. When he returned to San Francisco in 1905, he began preparing for his first solo exhibition, which was to be held the following year. However, Hunter's early work was destroyed in the fire that followed the 1906 San Francisco earthquake
1906 San Francisco earthquake
The San Francisco earthquake of 1906 was a major earthquake that struck San Francisco, California, and the coast of Northern California at 5:12 a.m. on Wednesday, April 18, 1906. The most widely accepted estimate for the magnitude of the earthquake is a moment magnitude of 7.9; however, other...
, and he returned to Scotland shortly afterwards, settling in Glasgow
Glasgow
Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland and third most populous in the United Kingdom. The city is situated on the River Clyde in the country's west central lowlands...
. Initially he continued to make his living there primarily as an illustrator. What painting he did was dominated by still-lifes on black backgrounds, influenced by the Dutch style.
Hunter only began to achieve fame after a trip to Étaples
Étaples
Étaples or Étaples-sur-Mer is a commune in the Pas-de-Calais department in northern France. It is a fishing and leisure port on the Canche river.There is a separate commune named Staple, Nord.-History:...
in northern France in 1914. Here, inspired by French art and the local landscape, he began to develop the style and ability that would later identify him as a colourist. However, the onset of the First World War forced him to return to Scotland, where his work became noticed by Alexander Reid
Alexander Reid
Alexander Reid was a Scottish playwright.His two best-known plays are The Lass wi' the Muckle Mou, based on the legend of Thomas the Rhymer, and The Warld's Wander, about Michael Scot, the famous magician....
of Reid & Lefevre. In 1915, Hunter held his first one-man exhibition with Reid in Glasgow. Hunter's work at this stage of his career focused primarily on still-lifes, inspired by Chardin
Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin
Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin was an 18th-century French painter. He is considered a master of still life, and is also noted for his genre paintings which depict kitchen maids, children, and domestic activities...
, Kalf
Willem Kalf
- Life and work :Willem Kalf was born in Rotterdam, in 1619. He was previously thought to have been born in 1622, but H. E. van Gelder’s important archival research has established the painter’s correct place and date of birth. Kalf was born into a prosperous patrician family in Rotterdam, where...
and Manet
Manet
-MANET as an abbreviation:*MANET is a mobile ad hoc network, a self-configuring mobile wireless network.*MANET database or Molecular Ancestry Network, bioinformatics database-People with the surname Manet:*Édouard Manet, a 19th-century French painter....
. During the 1920s, Hunter began to be associated with a group of three other artists: John Duncan Fergusson, F. C. B. Cadell, and Samuel Peploe. The four of them became known as the Scottish Colourists, although the term was not used until 1948, by which time only Fergusson was still alive.
European travel and return to Fife
In 1922, Hunter began to make a series of trips to mainland Europe, where he visited Paris, VeniceVenice
Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...
, Florence
Florence
Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....
and the Riviera
The Riviera
The Riviera is an historic site at 270 Huntington Avenue in Boston, Massachusetts.The building was constructed in 1923 and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1995....
. Fergusson accompanied him on a number of these visits. Hunter's visits abroad produced a large number of paintings and his style changed noticeably in this period of European travel as he began using dabs of colour placed instinctively to portray underlying form.
When Hunter returned from his first series of trips abroad, in 1922, he settled in Fife
Fife
Fife is a council area and former county of Scotland. It is situated between the Firth of Tay and the Firth of Forth, with inland boundaries to Perth and Kinross and Clackmannanshire...
, on the east coast of Scotland and, between 1924 and 1927, he remained in Scotland, dividing his time between Fife and Glasgow. His paintings from this period include a number inspired by views of Loch Lomond
Loch Lomond
Loch Lomond is a freshwater Scottish loch, lying on the Highland Boundary Fault. It is the largest lake in Great Britain by surface area. The lake contains many islands, including Inchmurrin, the largest fresh-water island in the British Isles, although the lake itself is smaller than many Irish...
, and these landscapes increasingly took inspiration from the work of Cézanne to create colourful and atmospheric compositions. In 1925, Hunter's work was displayed at an exhibition in Leicester Square
Leicester Square
Leicester Square is a pedestrianised square in the West End of London, England. The Square lies within an area bound by Lisle Street, to the north; Charing Cross Road, to the east; Orange Street, to the south; and Whitcomb Street, to the west...
in London, along with works by Peploe, Cadell and Fergusson. Walter Sickert
Walter Sickert
Walter Richard Sickert , born in Munich, Germany, was a painter who was a member of the Camden Town Group in London. He was an important influence on distinctively British styles of avant-garde art in the 20th century....
, in his introduction to the exhibition, wrote that "Hunter uses the refractory ... to inspired ends on normal and traditional lines".
Hunter traveled again to the South of France on a number of occasions between 1927 and 1929, and based himself at St Paul de Vence. He sent paintings back to Reid to be exhibited in Glasgow and London, but he spent a great deal of time sketching and his output of finished oil paintings was low. One exhibition in London had to be postponed due to a lack of paintings. The France trips culminated in 1929 with a critically acclaimed exhibition at the Feragil Galleries in New York.
London, ill-health and death
However, shortly after returning to the French RivieraFrench Riviera
The Côte d'Azur, pronounced , often known in English as the French Riviera , is the Mediterranean coastline of the southeast corner of France, also including the sovereign state of Monaco...
in 1929, Hunter suffered a severe breakdown, forcing his sister to bring him home to Scotland in September. He recovered, and began to paint a number of portraits of his friends, including one of Dr Tom Honeyman
Tom Honeyman
Dr. Thomas "Tom" J. Honeyman was the director of the Glasgow Art Gallery.Born in Glasgow, the son of engine driver Thomas Honeyman and Elspeth Smith , Honeyman studied medicine at Glasgow prior to service in the trenches during the First World War...
, the Director of the Glasgow Art Gallery and Museum
Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum
The Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum is a museum and art gallery in Glasgow, Scotland. The building houses one of Europe's great civic art collections...
from 1939 until 1954. Honeyman, at the time an art dealer, had assisted Hunter in developing his career, and painting the portrait may have been a gesture of thanks.
In 1930 he embarked upon a series of drawings and watercolours of Hyde Park, which were due to be exhibited in London. Hunter hoped to move to the city permanently, as he found it livelier than Glasgow and the art market was more secure. However, his health deteriorated and he began to suffer badly from stomach pains. He died in Glasgow in 1931, aged 54, following an unsuccessful operation. A member of Glasgow Art Club
Glasgow Art Club
Glasgow Art Club is a club for practicing and retired artists and lay members with an interest in the arts, that has become over the generations “a meeting place for artists, business leaders and academics.” - History and premises :...
, work by Hunter was included in the club's Memorial Exhibition of 1935, in memory of those of its members who had died since the First World War.
Popularity
Hunter's paintings were popular with critics during his lifetime, and he had successful exhibitions in Glasgow, London and New York. Shortly before his death, the Glasgow Herald commented that while Hunter was already "well known as a painter of landscape and still-life," his move to portrait painting would "cause a good deal of interest and discussion."Many years after his death, solo exhibitions of Hunter's paintings were still held and, in 1953, the display of a selection of watercolours and paintings in Glasgow attracted numerous visitors. The art critic of the Glasgow Herald described the "varied and uneven genius" of the painter, and praised one painting as having been executed with "such a freedom and economy of touch one cannot well see how any amount of extra thought or technical application could have bettered it."
Paintings by Hunter have gone on to sell for large sums in the early 21st century, with one painting described as the "star lot" in a Bonhams
Bonhams
Bonhams is a privately owned British auction house founded in 1793. It is the third largest auctioneer after Sotheby's and Christie's, and conducts around 700 auctions per year. It has 700 employees....
auction in June 2010 selling for £144,000. Another painting was sold in June 2010 for £78,000. Nick Curnow, head of pictures at Lyon & Turnbull
Lyon & Turnbull
Lyon & Turnbull is a privately owned international auction house based in Scotland. Founded in 1826, it is Scotland’s oldest auction house; the largest independent auction house in the United Kingdom outside of London and one of the fastest growing auction houses in the UK.The firm has its...
, said of it "This is a very special painting, so typical of Hunter."
Style
Hunter focused for much of his life on landscapes and on still-lifes, working in both pen and ink and oil on canvas. His still-lifes of fruit are particularly distinctive, but he also painted a variety of landscapes, especially of Scotland and France. In his earlier paintings, Hunter was influenced by CézannePaul Cézanne
Paul Cézanne was a French artist and Post-Impressionist painter whose work laid the foundations of the transition from the 19th century conception of artistic endeavour to a new and radically different world of art in the 20th century. Cézanne can be said to form the bridge between late 19th...
to produce domestic landscapes. Later, however, in common with the other members of the Scottish colourists movement, he was heavily influenced by contemporary French artists like Monet
Claude Monet
Claude Monet was a founder of French impressionist painting, and the most consistent and prolific practitioner of the movement's philosophy of expressing one's perceptions before nature, especially as applied to plein-air landscape painting. . Retrieved 6 January 2007...
and Matisse
Henri Matisse
Henri Matisse was a French artist, known for his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor, but is known primarily as a painter...
, and his paintings began to make bolder and more energetic use of colour.
Hunter particularly strove to capture in his paintings the effects of light, and would repeatedly paint the same objects or locations under a range of lighting conditions. His brush style was influenced by the French avant garde and, especially in his later work, is described by art critics as '"open and free" and "energetic".