Back cover text:

In 1939, Scottish artist and sculptor J.D. Fergusson was commissioned to write a fully illustrated book on modern Scottish painting. The Second World War made this difficult and the first edition of Modern Scottish Painting was published in 1943 without illustrations. This new edition – edited, introduced and annotated by Alexander Moffat and Alan Riach – finally brings Fergusson’s project to fruition, illustrating the argument with colour reproductions of Fergusson’s own work.

Moffat and Riach frame Fergusson’s important art manifesto for the 21st-century reader, illuminating his views on modern art as he explores questions of technique, education, form and what it means for a painting to be truly modern. Fergusson relates these aspects of modern painting to Scottishness, showing what they mean for Scottish identity, nationalism, independence and the legacy that puritanical Calvinism has left on Scottish art – a particular concern for Fergusson given his recurring subject matter of the female nude.

The manifesto of a major working artist, expressing his belief in, and commitment to, what modern Scottish art is for, could be, and should be, and also it is a critical appraisal of how modern Scottish painting, and painting in the modern world, has developed and reached the point at which it has arrived.
FROM THE INTRODUCTION BY ALEXANDER MOFFAT AND ALAN RIACH

Reviews:

‘Fergusson would, I think, have been delighted to see his book now republished at a time when his strongly held views about art and nation are more topical than ever... When he wrote about modern art, he knew what he was talking about.’ – Duncan MacMillan, Scotland on Sunday

‘Modern Scottish Painting is a result of experience and exile... it is the kind of manifesto one would like to see political parties attempt in relation to culture... a cri de cour for artistic freedom.’ – Alan Taylor, The Herald