William Scott CBE RA (British, 1913-1989) Still Life Abstraction 1st Theme (XLV/L), 1974

William Scott CBE RA (British, 1913 – 1989)
Born 15 February 1913 in Greenock Scotland, William Scott was raised in his father’s hometown of Enniskillen in Northern Ireland from the age of eleven. Scott enrolled at the Belfast School of Art in 1928, where he began his career as a celebrated abstract painter known for his still lifes, landscapes, and female nudes. In 1942, Scott joined the Royal Army Ordnance Corps and later served with the Royal Engineers as a lithographic draughtsman. Throughout his service, he continued to paint and exhibit at both solo and group shows. Upon discharge from the army in 1946, Scott became Senior Painting Master at the Bath Academy of Art, where he would teach for the next ten years, during which time he associated with artists from the St. Ives group and American abstract expressionists. Though Scott left full-time teaching in 1956, he remained involved in art school education for the remainder of his life. In the 1960s and 70s, Scott’s work was exhibited all over the world, including retrospectives in Zurich, Hannover, and his home province of Ulster in Northern Ireland. In 1966, he was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire and received honorary doctorates from the Royal College of Art in London, Queen’s University Belfast, and Trinity College Dublin. On 28 December 1989, Scott died at his home in Somerset. Scott’s work has been shown posthumously at the Irish Museum of Modern Art in 1998 and at The Verey Gallery, Eton College in 2016.