| William Scott | |
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William Scott in 1959 (during a visit by Mark Rothko) |
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| Born | February 15, 1913 Greenock, Scotland |
| Died | December 28, 1989 (aged 76) |
| Nationality | British |
| Field | Painting |
| Movement | Abstract |
William Scott (15 February 1913 – 28 December 1989) was a British artist known for still life and abstract painting. He is the most internationally celebrated of 20th century Ulster painters.[1]
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Born in Greenock, Scotland, to Scots-Irish parents, he was brought to Enniskillen, County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland, his father’s native town, in 1924. His father was a housepainter and signwriter and died in 1927.[1] He was educated at the Model School and attended night classes in art at the Technical School, taught by Kathleen Bridle. He went to Belfast College of Art in 1928 and won a scholarship to the Royal Academy Schools in London in 1931. There he won a silver medal and became a Landseer scholar in painting. He was awarded a Leverhulme scholarship in 1935.[2]
He married in 1937 and lived abroad, mostly in France.[1] During the early years of World War II he helped to run an art school in France and from there went to live in Dublin and then London. From 1942 to 1946 he served with the Royal Engineers, and learned lithography in the map-making section.[2] From 1946 until 1956 Scott was senior lecturer in painting at the Bath Academy of Art. He visited the USA and met Jackson Pollock, Elaine de Kooning, Franz Kline and Mark Rothko. Until then largely a still life painter, Scott’s work underwent a radical reduction in colour and form and he was greatly influenced by his contact with the American Abstract Expressionists.[1] In 1961, he executed a mural for the Altnagelvin Hospital, Derry.[2] He died in Bath, Somerset in 1989.[1]
He represented Britain at the Venice Biennale in 1954 and 1958. He exhibited in London, America, Italy, Switzerland, West Germany, France, Canada and Australia, as well as Belfast and Dublin.[2] A retrospective of his work was held at the Tate Gallery, London in 1972 and in 1998 a major retrospective was organised by the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin.[1]