Radical Perspectives:Francis Fowle shares insights about 'The Pool of London' (1906) by André Derain

By Francis Fowle, 10.02.2025

André Derain, 'The Pool of London' (1906). Tate

In this new series of films, the Fleming Wyfold Foundation's Curator Emeritus James Knox asks professors of history of art to talk about a work from the Fleming Collections's exhibition, 'The Scottish Colourists: Radical Perspectives', showing at Dovecot, Edinburgh (7th February - 28th June 2025).

 

Professor Francis Fowle shares insights about 'The Pool of London' (1906) by André Derain, loaned from Tate. 

 

 

Frances Fowle is an art historian and curator, specialising in French and Scottish art. She is an authority on collecting and the early market for Impressionism, with a current focus on women as tastemakers. She has curated numerous international exhibitions and her publications include Impressionism and Scotland (2008), Van Gogh’s Twin (2010) and a co-edited anthology, Globalising Impressionism: Reception, Translation and Transnationalism (2020). She is Chair of Nineteenth-Century Art at the University of Edinburgh, Senior Curator of French Art at the National Galleries of Scotland, Chair of the Association for Art History and Senior Trustee of the Burrell Collection. (Source: RSE)

 

This view of the Thames from London Bridge is one of four works painted by Derain, showing the same part of the river. At this time he was a leading member of the fauve group of painters in Paris. He had been sent to London by his dealer to update the popular Thames views painted by Claude Monet a few years earlier. Strongly-coloured and freely-handled, this painting is characteristic of fauvism in creating vivid effects through bold contrasts of colour. (Source: Tate)