Eástre, Hymn to the Sun

John Duncan Fergusson is best known as a painter and the most commercially successful and critically regarded of the Scottish Colourists.

Fergusson also made several sculptures, and the title of this bust refers to Eástre the Saxon goddess of spring, and it is believed to be a portrait of the artist’s wife Margaret Morris. As a dancer and leader of a dance school, Morris was involved in a performance called ‘Hymn to the Sun.’

J D Fergusson became a close friend of Charles Rennie Mackintosh, then a neighbour in Chelsea, from whom Margaret Morris commissioned a number of designs for studio flats and a theatre. Sadly, they came to nothing, but their friendship grew and it may well have been Fergusson who recommended Mackintosh to go to the south of France to rest and paint.