Roses

Still life of roses in pale yellow and pink colours. A bouquet is arranged in a glass jug at the right hand side and a few more flowers are placed on a grey drapery towards the nearer foreground of the composition. Signed with monogram and dated at upper left "18 SP 89".

Stuart Park studied at the Glasgow School of Art and in Paris under Lefebvre, Corman and Boulanger. He was closely associated with Glasgow Boys but never became a central figure in the group. At first he devoted himself mainly to figure subjects and portraiture, but his main specialty became carefully arranged flower pieces painted in his highly individual technique, often using broad rapid brushwork as also evident in this painting. The picture thus gains strong decorative quality suggestive of patterns and texture, and rather than defining the actual flowers, the painting focuses more on the tonal harmonies between colours and forms. Paint becomes a rich and plastic material handled with generosity, full of body and with endless possibilities of varied texture in its application.

Credit: Purchased, 1945