William Scott, R.A.

Private Collection
Bernard Jacobson Gallery, London, where acquired by the present owner in 1997

London, Berkeley Square Gallery, William Scott, 26th September - 15th October 1988, un-numbered catalogue, illustrated;
Dublin, Kerlin Gallery, William Scott, 11th October - 9th November 1996, cat. no.5;
London, Bernard Jacobson Gallery, William Scott: A Retrospective, 3rd April - 11th May 1997, un-numbered catalogue.

Norbert Lynton (intro.), William Scott, Modern British Masters Vol.1, Bernard Jacobson Gallery, London, 1990, unpaginated, illustrated no.15;
Norbert Lynton, William Scott, Thames & Hudson, London, 2004, pp.292-3, illustrated;
Sarah Whitfield (ed.), William Scott Catalogue Raisonné of Oil Paintings Vol. 3, Thames and Hudson, London, 2013, cat. no.626, p.255, illustrated.

Original canvas. There are areas of craquelure to the black pigment, most noticeably to the two central black forms, as well as to the navy blue outlines of several of the forms. There are minor signs of wear and slight abrasion to the extreme edges, possibly as a result of a previous framing, with one or two very slight signs of possible abrasion to some of the raised elements of impasto. This excepting the work appears in good overall condition. Ultraviolet light reveals areas of fluorescence and retouchings to the aforementioned black craquelure and along the extreme upper left hand edge, in line with the aforementioned abrasion, and further areas which may well be in keeping with the artist's retouchings running in the darker black outline of the top form in the centre of the top edge. Please telephone the department on +44 (0) 207 293 6424 if you have any questions regarding the present work.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

We are grateful to the William Scott Archive for their kind assistance with the cataloguing of the present work, which is registered with the William Scott Archive as number 300.

'Apart from the subject, which I can do nothing about, what interests me in the beginning of a picture is the division of spaces and forms, these must be made to move and animated like living matter‘ (Scott quoted in exhibition catalogue, The New Decade, Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1955, pp.74-75).

By the 1960s, Scott was an established artist on the international stage, regularly exhibiting both at home and abroad. His visits to New York in 1953 and 1959 resulted in a professional friendship with the New York abstract painters, particularly Rothko.  Despite his interest in American painting, Scott did not align himself with the New York school rather his contact with America reaffirmed the importance of the European tradition to him. 

Scott’s works from this period are renowned for their rapid development in terms of abstraction and structural composition. Whilst still life remained a dominant theme, the familiar pots and pans have lost their identity metamorphosing into soft-edged irregular oblongs and variants of squares.

Abstract exemplifies Scott’s experimentation in tonal painting which played a critical role in the structure and sense of movement depicted in his canvases of this period. Scott had a great admiration for Bonnard, and his influence can be seen in the colours employed in this work. The paint surface glows with vibrant blues, giving a sensation of light and space to the painting. The dense black shapes and the solitary bold white curved form immediately dominate, but we are then subtly drawn to the shadowy outlines of shapes which emerge in the background. There is a suggestion in these forms of the textures and shapes from the ancient cave paintings at Lascaux which had impressed Scott in when he visited them in 1955.  Scott’s disparity in his paint application is crucial to this effect. The result is to create a sense of shifting movement, or in Scott’s words `animation’, to the work. 

Scott had no interest in symmetry: the forms in Abstract are arranged in uneven tiers, their shapes cut by the edges of the composition to give an impression that the work is part of an on-going canvas. Scott uses the spacing of the shapes to divide the picture area and create tensions between the forms. In this way the spaces between the shapes become almost as interesting as the shapes themselves.