This major exhibition of the work of William Scott (1913-1989), one of the most influential British artists of the 1950s and ’60s, was the most comprehensive showing of Scott’s work for many years. It included some 90 works drawn from public and private collections as well as from those held by the Scott family and showed aspects of the artist’s practice from the early figurative paintings of the 1930s through his abstract works to his return to figuration in the late 1970s and ’80s. It examined, in particular, the relationship between his paintings and drawings and included many previously unseen works.
Born in Greenock, Scotland in 1913 to Scottish and Irish parents, Scott returned to his father’s home town of Enniskillen, Northern Ireland, in 1924, but later moved to England. He exhibited widely during his lifetime, most notably at the Venice Biennale in 1958, the Tate Gallery, 1972, and in 1986 at the Ulster Museum in Belfast, touring to the Guinness Hopstore, Dublin, and the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art.
The exhibition was supported by Oxford Exhibition Services. Talks and lectures were supported by the British Council. A full-colour catalogue is available with essays by Michael Tooby, Curator of the Tate Gallery St Ives, and British art historian and critic, Simon Morley, price £19.95.