William Scott, R.A.

Acquired directly from the artist by Jean-Yves Mock, London
His sale, Sotheby's, London, 10 March 2005, lot 38

London, Hanover Gallery, William Scott: 20 Gouaches 1952, 1962, illustrated in the exhibition catalogue;
London, Tate Gallery, William Scott: Paintings, Drawings and Gouaches 1938-71, 1972, no.29d, illustrated in the exhibition catalogue.

The work is on wove paper which has not been laid down. The upper, lower and right edges of the sheet are deckled. The paint surface is in good overall condition. There is no sign of retouching under ultra-violet light. Held beneath glass and presented against a black backboard in a simple black wooden box frame.
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The present work is registered in the William Scott Archive as no.1684.
Sarah Whitfield is currently preparing the Catalogue Raisonne of works in oil by William Scott.  The William Scott Foundation would like to hear from owners of any work by the artist so that these can be included in this comprehensive catalogue or in future projected catalogues.  Please write to Sarah Whitfield c/o Sotheby's, 20th Century British Art Department, 34-35 New Bond Street, London W1A 2AA.

In the summer of 1952, Scott embarked on a series of small-scale gouaches that are crucial in marking his first foray into full-scale abstraction. Taking their starting point from a studio melting pot, these works distort and stretch the subject beyond a point of recognition and become essays in the relationship of pure colour and form. The immediate necessities of the gouache medium forced a quick spontaneity onto the gelling of thought and as this series progressed, the move away from the figurative becomes ever more evident, whilst the evidence of reworking and alterations remains. The present works, both of which were first shown in a special exhibition of these ground-breaking gouaches at the Hanover Gallery in 1962, force the basic compositional elements stage by stage, rendering the original starting point almost invisible. By comparing the two works, which use the same basic forms, we can see just how this progression of ideas moved. Later works from the series become even more abstracted, completely losing even the basic references to the original still-life elements. 

The lessons learnt through this series of paintings find further development in the abstract oils of the 1952-54 period and of these, perhaps the best known, and closest to Gouache 1952 (H8), is Orange, Black & White Composition (Collection Tate).  It is worth remarking that to make such a move into full abstraction at this time was still a heroic act, risking as it did the alienation of the hard-won support of those collectors whose patronage was so rare in the immediate post-war period. That this was a real danger can be seen in the contemporary abandonment of Victor Pasmore by the influential critic and patron, Kenneth Clark.