THE life and works of a truly great Scottish artist, Samuel John Peploe, are to be celebrated a major exhibition of his paintings and drawings to coincide with this year, the 150th anniversary of his birth.

One of the four famous Scottish Colourists, Peploe was born in Edinburgh and studied art in Paris where he lived from 1910 to 1912. It was through painting holidays in Northern France that he was introduced to the use of bold colour, inspired by the bright sunlight. He later experienced the same intensity of light while painting on the island of Iona.

The exhibition will be held in The Scottish Gallery in Dundas Street, Edinburgh, from Thursday, September 30 to Saturday, October 23 and will include many of his greatest paintings with key loans sourced from notable private collections.

It will be divided into four sections: still life works, Peploe’s best known and most successful genre; his paintings of his models including Jeannie Blyth, the gypsy flower girl who sat for him over a 10-year period; his Fauvist panels which defined his arrival as a colourist.

Recognised as Scotland’s first Modernist painter, during his lifetime, Peploe exhibited in Edinburgh, London, Paris and New York and his work was acquired by the Scottish and French National Collections.

In the 86 years since Peploe’s death, his reputation has grown internationally and in recent decades many revered museums and art critics have highlighted his significant contribution to European Modernism, further cementing his legacy.

Guy Peploe, Samuel John Peploe’s grandson and curator of the exhibition, said: “Today the qualities of Samuel John Peploe: the early achievements, the timelessness of his mature oeuvre, the seriousness of his quest for the masterpiece, the direct expressionist appeal of his first Modernist pictures, the subtle delivery of his emotionally laden palette, all identify a significant contributor to our cultural history; one of our greatest painters.”