Download a PDF of the exhibition catalogue - The Scottish Gallery

By the time of the artist’s death in 1935 James Caw had come to recognise Peploe as one of Scotland’s greatest painters.
Caw was the biographer of his father-in-law William McTaggart and wrote a History of Scottish Art, published in 1908.
He became the director of the Scottish National Gallery and the Scottish National Portrait Gallery from 1907–1930.
When he reviewed Peploe’s first exhibition in 1903 his praise was heavily qualified; he identified a ‘perverse taste for
the ugly or the bizarre in figure and landscape’ 1 and a lack of subtlety of vision. Certainly Peploe’s early work is bold
and his subjects not chosen for their inherent beauty; even The Lobster (which Caw singles out for particular praise) is a
difficult subject; an admirable lunch and a complex, fascinating creature but certainly a challenge to the painter. Peploe
has made out of it one of his masterpieces.
Peploe admired seventeenth century Dutch painting and had made a study trip to Holland in the mid-1890s 2
and that still life tradition, which includes specialist painters of the profusion of the fishmonger’s table, is acknowledged.
His composition however is uncluttered, much closer in spirit to Chardin or Manet. This was Peploe’s first exhibition
and the obsessive care he took in the preparations (including painting and repainting a frieze in one of the rooms)
indicates a personality trait and a recognition after many years of study and preparation that at the age of thirty-three
this exhibition would launch his career as an exhibiting artist.
Peploe’s skill was in perfect balance with his confidence: the bone handle of the knife is made up of three
brushstrokes and every mark is assured and perfectly placed. The beautifully graded tones of the table-top merge into
background: olive to a black enriched with burnt-sienna. The harmony of his arrangement, a loose rhombus made of
lobster, knife, plate and lemon is perfectly lit to allow a maximum impact of colour and tonal contrast. The vertically
placed signature in lobster-colour seems a self-consciously stylish touch: like a piece of oriental calligraphy – but it is
also an essential part of his composition.
1 Sir James Caw, ‘Studio Talk – Edinburgh’, The Studio (Vol XXX, 1904), p.161
2 Guy Peploe, S.J. Peploe, (Mainstream, Edinburgh, 2000), p.16
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