JOHN MACLAUCHLAN MILNE R.S.A. (SCOTTISH 1885-1957) §
FIGURES IN A SUNLIT STREET
£21,420
Scottish Paintings & Sculpture
Auction: Evening Sale | Lots 103-196 | Thursday 05 December from 6pm
Description
Signed, oil on canvas
Dimensions
51cm x 61cm (20in x 24in)
Provenance
Christie's Scotland, Edinburgh, The Scottish Sale 28th October 2004, lot 264;
Private Collection, Scotland.
Footnote
This painting probably dates from the south of France in the mid to late 1920s, when John Maclauchlan Milne was travelling to the Côte d’Azur, returning to Dundee to work up his sketches for exhibitions in his studio in the Nethergate, at the Royal Scottish Academy, Royal Glasgow Institute and, from 1925, at the Society of Scottish Artists and elsewhere. His first trip to the south of France was in 1924. He was 38 years old. He had already spent time living and painting in Paris and in the Loire Valley in the early 1920s.
Much later in his life, when Tom Honeyman (previously Director of the Kelvingrove Gallery in Glasgow, and earlier a director of art dealers Reid & Lefèvre) asked Maclauchlan Milne for biographical details for an article for The Scottish Field, Milne remembered his time in Vence, St Paul de Vence and St Tropez ‘…with such men as Segonzac, Kisling and Mendjisky.’ (quoted in M. N. Millar, The Missing Colourist: The Search for John Maclauchlan Milne RSA, privately published 2022, p.135)
So who suggested that Maclauchlan Milne should visit Cassis and St Tropez in 1924? Moïse Kisling was in Montparnasse with Pablo Picasso at the Café de la Rotonde in August 1916. (see Billy Kluver, A Day with Picasso, The MIT Press, London, 1997). Maclauchlan Milne painted there in 1921. Kisling had already been painting in St Tropez in 1916 and 1917 and Cassis in 1918, so perhaps they met in Paris in 1920/21 or alternatively Maclauchlan Milne was advised by S. J. Peploe or J. D. Fergusson, who had both been painting on the Côte d’Azur in 1913. (see Millar, op.cit., pp.165-166) Figures in a Sunlit Street is redolent of Maclauchlan Milne’s French pictures from the 1920s.
We are grateful to Maurice Millar, author of The Missing Colourist: The Search for John Maclauchlan Milne RSA (privately published in 2022 and available via The Missing Colourist website) for writing this catalogue note.