Portrait of a Gallery - The Scottish Gallery

George Leslie Hunter (1879-1931)
Street Scene c.1920 pastel and ink 26.5 x 20.5 cms
Hunter produced much more on paper in the last ten years of his life than in oil. He was leading a
peripatetic life moving from the South of France to London and Scotland in search of inspiration and the
practicalities favoured drawing and watercolour. He was supported by his friend Tom Honeyman, then a
partner in Reid and Lefèvre, but who was more than once disappointed to receive a package of works on
paper for a planned exhibition of new work. But these vigorous and spontaneous drawings with crayon or
watercolour are some of the most vivid, successful works of the artist’s maturity. The nervous energy
in his marks are not obscured by overwork and the excitement the artist feels at work is communicated.
He worked in Nice, Villefranche and here in the Antibes. This is perhaps one of the works entrusted to
Willy and Denis Peploe for delivery to Lefèvre in London on their way returning to School at the end of
the summer holidays from Cassis in 1924.
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