[1] Although he briefly trained as a naval surgeon, Fergusson soon realised that his vocation was painting and he enrolled at the Trustees Academy, an Edinburgh-based art school.

Andre Dunoyer de Segonzac wrote in his foreword to Fergusson's memorial exhibition of 1961: "His art is a deep and pure expression of his immense love of life.

"[1] Fergusson became part of the enormous growth in artistic talent that Paris was home to at the beginning of the twentieth century.

[3] In addition, he and his friend Samuel Peploe regularly painted together at Paris Plage[4] (Le Touquet) and other places along the coast between 1904–9.

It was at this period too that he began his relationship with the American illustrator Anne Estelle Rice (1879–1959),[5] whom he encouraged to take up painting.

She had been sent to Paris to provide drawings for articles on theatre, ballet, opera and race meetings published in the North American magazine and was to figure in many of Fergusson's canvases.