William Scott, R.A.

Gallery Moos, Toronto

The tones and texture of the present work is much richer with more depth than the illustration suggests. Original canvas with some very minor scuff to the corners. There is a small speck of paint loss to a minor line of craquelure in the upper left quadrant otherwise in excellent original condition with strong passages of impasto throughout. Under ultraviolet light, there appear to be no signs of retouching. Held in a simple metallic veneer box frame.
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Although dated 69, the present work was painted in 1979 and is registered with the William Scott Archive as no.1567.
Sarah Whitfield is currently preparing the Catalogue Raisonné 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.

Following the energetic and rhythmic nature of his series of Berlin Blues from the mid 1960s and the outburst of curvilinear shapes and forms that he developed for murals at Altnagelvin Hospital, Londonderry and the new Irish Television Centre, Dublin, Scott's series of work in the 1970s took on a fresh and understated aesthetic. His new pictures marked a return to the still life subject matter that had been a major pre-occupation throughout his life and which had become fundamental to both the form and content of his work. 

The genesis for his life long treatment of the theme was a visit to an exhibition in Paris in the summer of 1946 entitled A Thousand Years of Still Life Painting which left him 'really overwhelmed by the fact that the subject had hardly changed for 1000 years, and yet each generation in turn expressed its own period and feelings and time within this terribly limited narrow range of the still life ' (Scott, quoted in Norbert Lynton, William Scott, London 2004, p.61). Despite the seemingly 'limited' subject, the exhibition clearly left him in no doubt as to the power of the genre and its capacity for artistic creativity. 

Although dated 69, the present work was actually executed in 1979 and is strongly related to Poem for a Jug no.II (1979-80, Coll. Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin). The instantly recognisable forms clearly reference early works such as Jug of Flowers (1938, Private Collection) whilst the minimalist handling also demonstrates the evolution of his work in an abstract direction since the 1940s.