Known for his modernist abstract and domestic still life painting, William Scott is a highly regarded name within 20th Century British Art. Scottish-born, he attended school in Northern Ireland and joined the Belfast School of Art in 1928. In 1931 he moved to London where he first joined the sculpture department of the Royal Academy Schools but later moved to painting.
Scott married fellow student Mary Lucas in 1937, and the couple travelled to France and Italy, settling in France to establish an art school in Pont-Aven. They returned to the United Kingdom at the outbreak of World War II and Scott took up a post with the Royal Army Ordinance Corps and the Royal Engineers, while continuing to create and exhibit new artwork for major London galleries. From the 1940s onwards, his work began to shift from detailed figurative and landscape imagery to increasingly abstract still life themes, painted with brighter tones and modern, simplified composition and form. Reflecting on his practice and developing themes, Scott commented, “I am an abstract artist in the sense that I abstract. I cannot be called non-figurative while I am still interested in the modern magic of space, primitive sex forms, the sensual and the erotic, disconcerting contours, the things of life.”
In 1951, Scott was invited to participate in the Art’s Council’s Festival of Britain and began to exhibit internationally. He gained substantial recognition: representing Britain in the 1958 Venice Biennale and British Council exhibitions worldwide. Scott was awarded a CBE in 1966 and in the 1970s, London’s Tate Gallery held a major retrospective of Scott’s work. He became an Associate member of the Royal Academy, gaining the title of R.A. in 1984.