Still Life with a Bowl of Fruit, Bottle, Cup and Glass 1929

Samuel Peploe made this still life with a bowl of fruit, bottle, cup and glass with visible brushstrokes and muted colours, like he’s figuring out how to put it all together as he goes. There's this constant push and pull between abstraction and representation that's so alive to me; you can see the quick, confident strokes of paint that build up the forms. I find myself focusing on the negative space around the bottle, where the white of the tablecloth meets the darkness of the glass, because you get a real sense of the thickness and texture of the paint. It’s like he’s not just painting what he sees but also showing us how he sees, which is as a painter. It reminds me a little of Morandi, that same quiet intensity, that same dedication to exploring the possibilities of a limited range of subjects. But where Morandi is all about subtlety and restraint, Peploe feels a little more wild, a little more free. It's a reminder that art is always a conversation, an ongoing exchange of ideas and approaches across time and space.