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Vale “No plans were ever made for the Collection. He didn’t even consider dying.” Margery Blyth John Waldegrave Blyth died on 19th March 1962 in his ninetieth year. His estate was inherited by his three daughters Dorothy, Margery and Cora. By the end of September 1963 the Kirkcaldy Town Council had decided to accept an offer from Blyth’s daughters, formalised in a letter from Messrs Gibson & Spears, Dow & Son dated the 12th of that month, of 128 paintings from the Collection for a total price of £9,000. The decision as to which pictures were to be sold to the Kirkcaldy Art Gallery and which were to be auctioned at Sotheby’s was made on the basis of where each picture was hanging in March 1962. Those in the Kirkcaldy Art Gallery remained there as part of the Collection sold to the Kirkcaldy Town Council for £9,000, apart from a selection which the legatees wanted to keep for themselves. The pictures hanging in Wilby House in 1962 were destined for the saleroom, with the exception of a few that were retained by the legatees and three works by William McTaggart: White Surf, Cornfields and Cornfield, Sandy Dean. The latter three pictures were among the largest in the Collection and important examples of McTaggart’s work. All three had been purchased from Aitken Dott before 1920 and were among the most treasured works in the Collection. It was therefore fitting that they should remain in Kirkcaldy. Two Sotheby’s sales took place in 1964, on 15th and 29th April. Among the works sold in the first, an auction titled ‘Modern British Drawings, Paintings and Sculpture’, were six paintings by Sickert, including two fine early examples – La Giuseppina (his Venetian model) of c.1904 and Reclining Nude – Red and Green of c.1908 – and two paintings of Dieppe. There were also six pictures by William McTaggart, including a study for the painting of The Coming of St Columba which is in the National Gallery of Scotland, and four pictures by S.J. Peploe. Two important foreign works were sold in the auction on 29th April. Both had been taken from the Collection hanging in the Kirkcaldy Art Gallery before the rest were sold to the Kirkcaldy Town Council, on the basis of Margery’s assertion that she felt her father had bought them as investments relatively late in the development of his Collection. The selection in the Kirkcaldy Art Gallery in 1962 included only four major works by foreign artists: a Vuillard, a Corot and Dolly by Jacques-Émile Blanche. Blyth clearly did not intend the Collection to be representative of foreign schools and therefore the sale of the Corot and Vuillard does not detract from the comprehensive nature of the Collection sold to the Kirkcaldy Town Council. The two foreign works were indeed sound investments and without them many more pictures from the Collection would probably have been sold. The Corot, titled Souvenir de La Spezia (Effet du Matin) (1874), had been purchased by Blyth in 1942 for £250 and was sold for £5,800. The Vuillard, titled Paysage (1890), was purchased in 1950 for £180 and sold at this sale 14 years later for £3,200. The last sale was held on 20th April 1966. Ten paintings by William McTaggart, 11 works by S.J. Peploe, two by J.D. Fergusson, six by W.R. Sickert, two by Philip Wilson Steer, one by W.G. Gillies and a still-life by Bernard de Hoog were sold. All had been 22
hanging in Wilby House in 1962. The most important of these was Sickert’s Woman in a Red Dress, bought by Roland, Browse & Delbanco for £1,000; Blyth had acquired it from the same dealer in 1955 for £450. The remainder were sold either to small galleries or to larger provincial galleries, for example Aberdeen Art Gallery which purchased Steer’s Sandy Road at Long Clarendon (1925). Today’s exhibition contains many works not seen for two generations and more. Some are masterpieces and some minor works; all speak of the taste of a great collector who would today be rightly proud of his Collection’s history since his passing. Kirkcaldy, thanks to his generosity and foresight, is the gem in the municipal crown of Scottish museums and de facto the centre of study for Peploe and McTaggart. Others of his pictures are in museum collections far and wide, and the sensible nurture of the works retained by the family has done much good. Today as the final 38 are sold we can tell his story and invite buyers, readers and lovers of fine paintings to wonder at the taste of Jack Blyth. PETER ARKELL AND GUY PEPLOE 23
Page 1: the taste of JW Blyth
Page 5 and 6: Foreword Michael Portillo I knew my
Page 7 and 8: elevation plan to Wilby house, 1909
Page 9 and 10: Collecting Blyth kept a simple reco
Page 11 and 12: the hawcklymuir factory, Kirkcaldy
Page 13 and 14: and Explanatory Notes on the Art of
Page 15 and 16: Peploe in terms of colour: ‘altho
Page 17 and 18: Blyth’s conversion was certainly
Page 19: Trouville Harbour and Deauville (pa
Page 22 and 23: Most contemporary publications, exh
Page 24 and 25: a warning of what we have escaped i
Page 28 and 29: catalogue Eugène Boudin was born i
Page 30 and 31: “everything that is painted on th
Page 32 and 33: Wintour was born in Edinburgh and a
Page 34 and 35: Two years senior to his great frien
Page 36 and 37: Paintings by William McTaggart, R.S
Page 38 and 39: there are a number of pictures of R
Page 40 and 41: In July 1947 Blyth bought a picture
Page 42 and 43: “The remarkable place which he ho
Page 44 and 45: “To few men has a more beautiful
Page 46 and 47: Wingate’s first arran subject exh
Page 48 and 49: Wingate’s Farm seems close in spi
Page 50 and 51: Alexander was born in Edinburgh, so
Page 52 and 53: edwin alexander (1870-1926) Moorlan
Page 54 and 55: edwin alexander (1870-1926) Doves a
Page 56 and 57: edwin alexander (1870-1926) Gullane
Page 58 and 59: edwin alexander (1870-1926) Storeho
Page 61 and 62: s.J. Peploe (1871-1935) The Lobster
Page 64 and 65: Peploe is strongly associated with
Page 66 and 67: Comrie is a village on the River ea
Page 68 and 69: s.J. Peploe (1871-1935) Paris Plage
Page 70 and 71: s.J. Peploe (1871-1935) Royan, 1910
Page 72 and 73: Peploe began to visit the south-wes
Page 74 and 75: fergusson held his first one-man-sh
Page 76 and 77:
Blyth bought three hunters the othe
Page 78 and 79:
Grant first visited Cassis in 1927
Page 80 and 81:
Lily McDougall was born in Glasgow
Page 82:
Walter Richard Sickert was born in
Page 85 and 86:
Walter Richard sickert (1860-1942)
Page 87 and 88:
ernest stephen lumsden (1883-1948)
Page 89 and 90:
James McBey (1883-1959) Venice Gran
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