John Duncan Fergusson (1874-1961)

'Well, I was in Paris, without money or rich relations ... but repeatedly encouraged by what someone has called "le bon air de Paris ...". Life was as it should be and I was very happy' (J.D. Fergusson, quoted in J. Geddes and M. Morris, Cafe Drawings in Edwardian Paris from the Sketch-Books of J.D. Fergusson, Glasgow, 1974, p. 8). Fergusson moved to Paris in 1907, becoming an habitué of Montparnasse night spots such as the Café d'Harcourt, situated on the boulevard Saint-Michel, east of the Luxembourg Gardens. In 1910 the English writer John Middleton Murry met Fergusson and Anne Estelle Rice there, and Murry described the café as 'the last resort of the petites femmes of the Left Bank ... Big hats and muffs were the mode that year, and some of the faces they framed were charming indeed' (J.M. Murry, Between Two Worlds: An Autobiography, London, 1935, p. 131).

In Paris Fergusson mixed freely with some of the greatest French avant-garde artists of the day such as Matisse, Derain and Delaunay. In common with these artists Fergusson sought to explore and develop the properties of colour, volume and line, and to do so through the subject matter of modern day Parisian life.