George Leslie Hunter’s paintings are known for their vibrant demonstration of colour across still life and landscape subjects. Alongside his fellow ‘Scottish Colourist’ friends, Hunter’s practice was heavily inspired by the French Impressionist artists, having visited France frequently over the early 1900s.

From 1907 onwards, having been profoundly moved by the paintings of Henri Matisse and the strong light of the French sun, Hunter employed bold contrasting colours, decorative fabric patterns and bright Mediterranean views into his practice. Each year between 1919 and 1924, the artist travelled to Scotland where he stayed in the eastern region of Fife, including the farmland hamlet of Drumeldrie, where the present work is based and became the location of several paintings and drawings over this period. While it is not known why Hunter chose this area of Scotland it is thought that the colourful buildings and coastal viewpoints drew him there. Over the 1920s, Hunter longed to escape from his Glasgow city life and return to the countryside. He wrote in a letter to a friend: ‘Fife is ever a delightful thought on my mind with its beautiful valleys and villages’.

While in Fife, Hunter began painting en plein air, working quickly to capture the feeling of place with a bold and emotive colour palette. This technique gave Hunter a renewed energy after the first World War and paved the way for his celebrated Colourist style inspired by French Impressionist and Fauvist artists. In describing his new, looser style of painting, Hunter comments on the breakthrough stating that he ‘…smashed through to something, forward in strength and simplicity and backward in refinement’.