William Scott

William Scott – Encouragement from his father; art studies in London

William Scott was born in Greenock in Scotland on 15 February 1913. After spending his childhood in his mother’s homeland of Scotland, he lived in Ireland from 1924, his father’s country. His father was a painter and graphic artist and recognised his son’s interest and encouraged it as much as he could. Through his art teacher, William Scott learnt about the works of Paul Cézanne, André Derain, Amedeo Modigliani and Pablo Picasso and the painting styles of these renowned artists greatly influenced the young artist’s early work. After the tragic death of his father whilst rescuing others from a fire, Scott began a course in painting and sculpture at the Belfast College of Art. A grant enabled him to visit the Royal Academy in London in 1931 where he was exceptionally successful, won a silver medal for sculpture and became a teacher in painting. Whilst in London he lived with fellow painters Alfred Janes and Mervyn Levy as well as the poet Dylan Thomas. 

Comprehensive teaching activities; study trips to Italy and France

After marrying in 1937, William Scott stayed abroad, mostly in Italy and France where he set up a private art school in Pont-Aven with the painter Geoffrey Nelson, but the outbreak of the Second World War forced him to return home. He remained for six months in Dublin where his first son Robert was born and during the early war years, the artist continued to run an art school in Bath in the English county of Somerset. After the birth of his second son James, Scott wanted to join the navy but landed in the army where he progressed through several regiments, learning to make maps and acquiring lithography skills during his service. After the war, Scott was appointed as a lecturer at Bath Academy of Art. Dring this time he travelled often to Cornwall and made contacts in the famous artist colony of St. Ives which had inspired numerous important painters and sculptors.

Great international success between abstraction and still life

William Scott reached a watershed in his artistic career when he personally met the Abstract Expressionist artists Franz Kline, Mark Rothko, Willem de Kooning and Jackson Pollock on a trip to New York in 1953. These encounters altered his way of painting but not in the sense that he then followed the American role models. On the contrary, he recalled his European roots and turned from his previous abstract tendencies back to still life. William Scott represented Great Britain at the Venice Biennale in 1958, exhibited his pictures in the Hanover Gallery and Tate Gallery in London, as well as in Edinburgh, Dublin and Belfast. He also participated three times at Documenta in Kassel and won a prize at the São Paolo Biennale. He was selected as a member of the Royal Academy in 1984.

William Scott died in Bath on 28 December 1989. His second eldest son James Scott follows in his father’s footsteps as a filmmaker and painter.