New releases from Steve Knightley, Jupiter & Okwess, Jason Palmer, Lisa Knapp and Gerry Driver, Kin'Gongolo Kiniata, Ingrid Laubrock/Tom Rainey, Dan Sealey, Simin Tande, PAZ
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In the ring with the Colourists
While the group known as the Colourists certainly reinvigorated Scottish painting, a new show is a welcome chance to reassess them, writes ANGUS REID
colourists 1
JOHN GREEN relishes photography that unfolds a longstanding and poetic relationship with Leeds
A uncomfortably misogynistic authorial voice that sometimes seems to lack insight troubles FIONA O’CONNOR
MARY CONWAY is disappointed by a production that panders – if inadvertently – to Western prejudice against China
JOHN GREEN is fascinated by a history that excavates the enormous role played by agricultural workers in recent times
ALEX HALL recommends a book that places empirical evidence at the heart of understanding racism
A recognition that individually we are powerless both politically and socially is essential, writes GORDON PARSONS
The Scottish Colourists: Radical Perspectives
Dovecot Studios, Edinburgh
THIS is a very surprising and subversive show.
It presents itself as a celebration of “the Colourists” who are regularly held up as doyens of Scottish Modernism. These were JD Fergusson (1874-1961), SJ Peploe (1871-1935) and FCB Cadell (1883-1937), the upper-middle-class painters wealthy enough to visit pre WWI Paris and who adopted the high key palette of the French “Fauves” (the Wild Ones).
Previously they had painted posh still lives in muted colours — silver jugs, fans and jonquils — and after Paris they painted them again, but in thick blocks of primary colour, before retreating to Iona to render its empty beaches in ethereal pinks, blues and whites. So far, so familiar.
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