Lyon & Turnbull
Lot 155
§ â—† JOHN MACLAUCHLAN MILNE R.S.A. (SCOTTISH 1885-1957) WINE BOATS, ST. TROPEZ Signed, oil on canvas Dimensions:51cm x 61cm (20in x 24in) Provenance:Provenance: Acquired from the Artist by Jack Lipsey, Glasgow, in 1956 and thence by descent to the present ownerExhibited: Portland Gallery, London, The Life and Works of John Maclauchlan Milne, 17 June - 9 July 2010 no.35 Note: Wine Boats, St Tropez is a tour de force example of Maclauchlan Milne’s work in the south of France. From 1919 until 1932, the artist spent significant amounts of time in the region, with St Tropez finding particular favour as a place to work. Other leading Scottish artists of the inter-war period were also drawn to the French Mediterranean, including Charles Rennie Mackintosh, James McIntosh Patrick, Anne Redpath and all four artists known as the ‘Scottish Colourists’.Such was its appeal to Maclauchlan Milne, that he spent most of the mid to late 1920s in France, intermittently returning to his base in Dundee to exhibit and sell his works in his native country. His French paintings met with immediate success and a solo exhibition at the leading Glasgow gallery, Reid and Lefevre, in 1928 included several of them, with more shown at its sister gallery in London the following year. Philip Long has explained how Maclauchlan Milne’s French work of the period ‘tends to emphasise the underlying solidity and structure of the Mediterranean villages he commonly portrayed, rather than defining forms by means of brilliant colour contrasts, as did Cadell, or, as was Hunter’s tendency, through a loose network of expressively applied brushstrokes.’ (Philip Long, ‘Introduction’, The Life and Works of John Maclauchlan Milne, London, 2010, pl.9). Wine Boats, St Tropez – and its companions - have maintained their appeal some hundred years after they were created, thanks in this case to its brightly coloured, vividly rendered depiction of a quay-side scene.In a handwritten letter from High Corrie on the isle of Arran, postmarked 16 October 1956, John Maclauchlan Milne wrote to Jack Lipsey following his acquisition of the present painting, stating: 'I am so glad that you like the picture of the wine boats, it has good design and colour.' The artist's biographer, Maurice Millar, has mooted that Wine Boats, St Tropez may be the painting of that title shown in the Exhibition of Pictures by Stewart Carmichael, Alec Grieve and J. Maclauchlan Milne held at the Albert Institute, Dundee, 24 February - 19 March 1933, no.79.We are grateful to Maurice Millar, author of 'The Missing Colourist: The Search for John Maclauchlan Milne RSA' for his help in researching this work.
