Kirkcudbright Galleries

14/07/2026

Portrait of a Girl, Red Bandeau c.1920 (right)
Oil on canvas
Private Collection

Experimenting with Fauvist blocks of colour as well as a red contour outline favoured by other artists working in Paris at the same time, Peploe presents a bold statement of a young woman named Poppy Lowe.

Suggestions of influence from both van Gogh and Matisse are countered by a classically direct composition. But SJ reaches back to the Paris years to shade in her facial features and neck with tones of green, orange and even purple. Unusually, he sketched and even modelled the sitter’s head before committing to oil and canvas one of his most dramatic portraits.

You can see this work, featured in our summer exhibition:
‘COLOUR: The Palette of S.J Peploe’ on display now until 4th October.
Free entry, donations welcome

14/07/2026

Kirkcudbright ⛵️🏰🌳

Kirkcudbright was the permanent home of EA Taylor and Jessie M King from 1915.

When living in Paris from 1911-1914 they had met and become friends with Peploe who was one of their first guests at The Greengate in the High Street.

He returned to Kirkcudbright, painting in the town and surrounding countryside in several future visits. Its harbour, then a busy fishing port, was reminiscent of Royan and Cassis, and the somewhat solid architecture of the town’s historic buildings, particularly the Tolbooth, gave him the opportunity to revisit the strong hot colours of France on the occasions when the small but evolving artists’ colony was bathed in summer sunshine.

His paintings in the Galloway landscape illustrate clearly Peploe’s response to the more muted tones of Scotland’s countryside and the evolution of his painting style, as well as his sense of colour.

Artworks shown on this wall left to right:
Kirkcudbright, 1916 (top left). On Fife (Kirkcaldy Galleries) on behalf of Fife Council.
Kirkcudbright, Tolbooth (bottom left) Private Collection.
Kirkcudbright, Street Corner 1917 (right) Aberdeen City Council (Aberdeen Archives, Gallery and Museums Collection)
Kirkcudbright Harbour 1916/7 (top) Private Collection.
A Summer’s day, Kirkcudbright 1916 (bottom)
Private Collection, Courtesy of Patrick Bourne.

14/07/2026

Join us this afternoon (Tuesday 14th July) from 1-3pm for the first of our fantastic free family drop-in workshops, to celebrate our Colour: The Palette of S.J. Peploe exhibition. Suitable for all ages!
Join Lily to create your own impasto style artwork inspired by Peploe's shapes and colours.

14/07/2026

13/07/2026

Join our brilliant volunteer guides for a short tour of the Colour: The Palette of S.J. Peploe exhibition.

Tuesday 2.30pm
Thursday 11am
Saturday 2.30pm

There is no need to book, let our front of house team know that you would like to join the tour.

13/07/2026

Tickets for the in person talk with Guy Peploe on the 20th August are sold out, but you can still buy tickets to access the live streamed talk on the 20th digitally from the comfort of your own home!

Customers will be sent out a link to access the talk, and it will be available for after the event as well so that you can watch the talk at your own comfort.

To get tickets to the live streamed event, click the link below:

Tickets are now available for Online Event: Guy Peploe livestreamed at Kirkcudbright Galleries at Online, Online on Thursday 20th August 2026. Click the link for further information and to secure your tickets now!

13/07/2026

We are delighted that our upcoming talk: ‘Mr Peploe may be considered the leader’: S. J. Peploe and the Scottish Colourists’ by Alice Strang is now sold out!

S. J. Peploe was the most successful, critically and commercially, of the four artists known as the Scottish Colourists. Moreover, it was his friendships with F. C. B. Cadell, J. D. Fergusson and G. L. Hunter that bound them together as a quartet, as they never formed an official group.

Alice Strang - .strang.art Associate Director of Lyon & Turnbull fine art auctioneers, will discuss how Peploe met, worked beside and exhibited with his Colourist colleagues, intertwined with an overview of his international career. She curated the National Galleries of Scotland’s Scottish Colourist Series of exhibitions of the work of Peploe, Fergusson and Cadell and her book about the Scottish Colourists for the galleries is due to be published later this year.

Image caption: Alice Strang with Iceland Poppies by S. J. Peploe
Photo: Stewart Attwood, courtesy Lyon & Turnbull

Sponsored by Lyon & Turnbull

13/07/2026

We are delighted that our upcoming talk: ‘Mr Peploe may be considered the leader’: S. J. Peploe and the Scottish Colourists' by Alice Strang is now sold out!

S. J. Peploe was the most successful, critically and commercially, of the four artists known as the Scottish Colourists. Moreover, it was his friendships with F. C. B. Cadell, J. D. Fergusson and G. L. Hunter that bound them together as a quartet, as they never formed an official group.

Alice Strang, Associate Director of Lyon & Turnbull fine art auctioneers, will discuss how Peploe met, worked beside and exhibited with his Colourist colleagues, intertwined with an overview of his international career. She curated the National Galleries of Scotland’s Scottish Colourist Series of exhibitions of the work of Peploe, Fergusson and Cadell and her book about the Scottish Colourists for the galleries is due to be published later this year.

Image caption: Alice Strang with Iceland Poppies by S. J. Peploe
Photo: Stewart Attwood, courtesy Lyon & Turnbull

Sponsored by Lyon & Turnbull

10/07/2026

Scotland Homeland 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 🏔️

When not in his studio Peploe was working, painting, in the landscape. Early works in East Lothian and Perthshire illustrate the beginnings of his sophisticated tonal colour palette and a fascination with trees. But he was inexorably drawn to the west; first in 1894 to Barra, a small island in the Outer Hebrides. In the Post Office of Castlebay, the only village, he met his future wife, Margaret, who came from Lochboisdale on neighbouring South Uist. For nearly a decade he returned regularly to Barra, producing extraordinarily wild views of the island on board panels in his favoured ‘en plein air style’.

Peploe was in Kirkcudbright for the first of several visits in 1915 and discovered an enduring connection with Iona in 1920.

Paintings shown all of Barra.

COLOUR: The Palette of S.J Peploe is on show now until 4th October, free entry, donations welcome.