WILLIAM SCOTT RA (1913-1989)
MODERN BRITISH (20th Century ) Biography

Provenance

Private Collection of Sir Robert Mayer

Exhibition History

London, The Hanover Gallery, 20 Gouaches 1952, 2May - 1 June 1962, catalogue number 19, on loan from Sir Robert Mayer

Description / Expertise

William Scott, the Irish Scottish artist, visited New York in 1953 on his way back from a teaching post in Canada and met the rising American superstars of his generation: Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko and Willem de Kooning. He was the first from Britain to do so. Clearly he had been following their progress, as in the previous summer of 1952 Scott had made a series of gouaches in which he experimented with purely abstract forms. Most of these works, including Blue Abstract, were exhibited at Hanover Gallery in London in 1953.

This close encounter with Abstract Expressionism made a huge impact on William Scott’s art. Throughout his career the original composition of his still-lives and nude paintings were balanced between abstraction and figuration.