Still Life with Peaches
- Artist: Duncan Grant
- Date: (circa) 1910
- Medium: oil on canvas
- Museum: The Courtauld Gallery
- Collection record: The Courtauld Gallery website
Listen to the free audio guide
About this artwork
This is the "Still Life with Peaches" by Duncan Grant. Painted around 1910 in oil on canvas, it’s a snapshot of a modernist turning point. In 1912, Grant was selected by Roger Fry and Clive Bell for the British section of the Second Post‑Impressionist Exhibition, a key moment that highlighted his shift toward the avant‑garde.
The canvas shows six different pieces from that exhibition, each a window into the artists that influenced him—Picasso’s angularity, Matisse’s color play, Vuillard’s subtle light. In this still life you can feel that same energy: the fruit glistens with a bright, almost crystalline quality, while the brushwork is sharp, faceted, and deliberate. That style echoes Cézanne, who, as Fry famously called, was “the great genius of the modern movement.”
Grant’s hands are busy but purposeful, capturing light on peach skin, the suggestion of a background that lingers only as a mood. The painting is a quiet dialogue between tradition and innovation, a testament to how a single artist can absorb and reinterpret the currents of his time.
See it in person
Still Life with Peaches hangs in The Courtauld Gallery at Somerset House, London. Point your phone at any artwork there and audioguide.london plays a free audio guide in six languages — no app download needed.
