• Search
  • Get our app
Whytes
  • Auctions
    • Auction Diary
    • Art Auctions
    • Collectibles Auctions
  • Live Bidding
  • Departments
    • Paintings, Drawings & Sculpture
    • Collectibles & Memorabilia
    • History
    • Medals & Militaria
    • Coins & Banknotes
  • Buy & Sell
    • Selling
    • Bidding
    • Live Bidding
    • Deliveries
    • Valuations
    • Important Notes
    • Terms & Conditions
    • Abbreviations
  • Resources
    • Artist Archive
    • Search The Archive
    • News
    • Artist Hall Of Fame
    • Whyte's App
    • Video
    • Twitter
    • Facebook
    • Instagram
    • Useful Links
  • About
    • About Us
    • Whyte's Team
    • Contact
    • Privacy Policy

William Scott

Register for Updates Request a Valuation
William Scott was born in Scotland in 1913. His father, a sign-writer and house painter, was Irish and from Enniskillen; his mother Scottish. The family moved back to Enniskillen in 1924 to find a better standard of living. Showing a keen interest in art William was sent to study with Kathleen Bridle who introduced him to water colour painting and the French tradition in art. In 1928 he attended the Belfast College of Art and in 1931 studied at the Royal Academy Schools in London. He went on to become one of few Irish artists (although Scotland can claim him also) in the post World War II period to establish a national and indeed international reputation as an abstract or semi-abstract painter.

His development as an artist followed the early modernist pathway of moving from naturalism towards a spare and poetic abstraction but without relinquishing the imprint of the original naturalistic or man made source. The French modernist tradition of Cιzanne, Bonnard and Braque was a potent early source of influence. He lived in France for periods in Cagnes-Sur-Mer and St Tropez in the south and at Pont Aven in the north. The wall paintings at Lascaux, which he visited in 1954, made a lasting impact.

His consistent subject matters of kitchen table still lifes and the nude female figure he worked at and distilled to an emotional and erotic essence of line, colour, shape and texture. If his cottage still lifes left their first marks on a Scottish or Ulster table, his later ones still bore their imprint. In a memorial poem to the artist, Brendan Kennelly registers their impact:

Hardly an outdoors man:
Flickering candle, domestic gold,
Bottle, basin, pot, pan:
Slowly the shapes take hold.

And will not be forgotten.
Eggs, lemons, grapes, pears:
The man walks through the kitchen,
Wanders among the stars.1

The development of his work progressed towards less and less pictorial elements (a fish, a plate, a glass). The former supporting table top, tilted α la Cezanne, now becomes the vertical pictorial ‘field’ or working ‘ground’ and his gift for placement and structural balance becomes even more assured, simple and eloquent. Of his move from the representation of objects in space to the orchestration of objects and space he has commented: “My problem was to reduce the immediacy of the individual object and to make a synthesis of ‘objects and space’ so that the new conception would be the expression of one thing and not any longer a collection of loosely related objects”.2...


...William Scott’s work is represented in many national and international collections. He has represented Britain in a group exhibition at the Sγo Paulo Bienal (1953) and with a solo exhibition at the Venice Biennale, 1958. He also has been included in Documenta, Kassel, Germany in 1959 and Rosc, Dublin in 1980. In 1986 a large retrospective of his paintings and drawings toured Ireland and Scotland and a major exhibition of his work was shown at IMMA in 1998.

(excerpt from catalogue essay)
Professor Liam Kelly
Belfast, October 2006

1 Brendan Kennelly, If You Were Bold Enough (in memory of William Scott), published in William Scott 1913-1989, RHA, Dublin, 1990.
2 As quoted in essay by Ronald Alley, William Scott, Arts Council of Northern Ireland and the Arts Council / An Chomhairle Ealνon, 1986.
Go Back
prev
next
Found 106 item(s) / Showing 1-28
  • BLUE STILL LIFE, 1969-1970 by William Scott sold for €450,000 at Whyte's Auctions

    'BLUE STILL LIFE, 1969-1970'

    • Price Realised: €450,000
    • Sale: 29 May 2017
    • oil on canvas
    • 48 x 72in. (121.92 x 182.88cm)
  • JUG AND PEAR, 1983 by William Scott sold for €120,000 at Whyte's Auctions

    'JUG AND PEAR, 1983'

    • Price Realised: €120,000
    • Sale: 04 March 2024
    • oil on canvas
    • 19 x 22in. (48.26 x 55.88cm)
  • CHINESE ORANGE III, 1969 by William Scott sold for €110,000 at Whyte's Auctions

    'CHINESE ORANGE III, 1969'

    • Price Realised: €110,000
    • Sale: 26 September 2022
    • gouache
    • 27 x 40in. (68.58 x 101.60cm)
  • JUG AND PEAR, 1983 by William Scott sold for €97,000 at Whyte's Auctions

    'JUG AND PEAR, 1983'

    • Price Realised: €97,000
    • Sale: 28 November 2006
    • oil on canvas
    • 48 by 56cm., 19 by 22in.
  • FRYING PAN AND EGGS, 1952 by William Scott sold for €74,000 at Whyte's Auctions

    'FRYING PAN AND EGGS, 1952'

    • Price Realised: €74,000
    • Sale: 18 November 2003
    • oil on canvas
    • 81 by 65cm., 32 by 25.5in.
  • STILL LIFE WITH SAUCEPAN, 1968 by William Scott sold for €72,000 at Whyte's Auctions

    'STILL LIFE WITH SAUCEPAN, 1968'

    • Price Realised: €72,000
    • Sale: 28 November 2022
    • gouache
    • 23 x 36in. (58.42 x 91.44cm)
  • ONE PEAR, 1979 by William Scott sold for €60,000 at Whyte's Auctions

    'ONE PEAR, 1979'

    • Price Realised: €60,000
    • Sale: 27 May 2024
    • oil on canvas
    • 12 x 16in. (30.48 x 40.64cm)
  • TWO LEMONS AND GRAPES, 1974 by William Scott sold for €24,000 at Whyte's Auctions

    'TWO LEMONS AND GRAPES, 1974'

    • Price Realised: €24,000
    • Sale: 17 September 2007
    • crayon and watercolour
    • 51 by 69cm., 20.2 by 27in.
  • STILL LIFE WITH MUG, 1968 by William Scott sold for €18,000 at Whyte's Auctions

    'STILL LIFE WITH MUG, 1968'

    • Price Realised: €18,000
    • Sale: 25 May 2020
    • gouache
    • 13½ x 19½in. (34.29 x 49.53cm)
  • YELLOW PEARS, 1975 by William Scott sold for €10,500 at Whyte's Auctions

    'YELLOW PEARS, 1975'

    • Price Realised: €10,500
    • Sale: 26 May 2014
    • watercolour and pencil on paper
    • 11.75 by 15.5in., 29.375 by 38.75cm.
  • UNTITLED, 1961 by William Scott sold for €10,000 at Whyte's Auctions

    'UNTITLED, 1961'

    • Price Realised: €10,000
    • Sale: 09 March 2020
    • gouache
    • 22½ x 30½in. (57.15 x 77.47cm)
  • VERTICAL BALANCE, 1966 by William Scott sold for €9,500 at Whyte's Auctions

    'VERTICAL BALANCE, 1966'

    • Price Realised: €9,500
    • Sale: 26 November 2018
    • gouache on paper
    • 27Ό x 21½in. (69.22 x 54.61cm)
  • TWO PEARS by William Scott sold for €9,500 at Whyte's Auctions

    'TWO PEARS'

    • Price Realised: €9,500
    • Sale: 17 September 2002
    • wax crayon on paper
    • 20 by 25cm., 8 by 10in.
  • GRAPES, 1979 by William Scott sold for €9,200 at Whyte's Auctions

    'GRAPES, 1979'

    • Price Realised: €9,200
    • Sale: 19 September 2006
    • lithograph in colours on wove paper (no. 30 from an edition
    • 50 by 64cm., 19.5 by 25.2 5in.
  • CUP AND PAN BLUES by William Scott sold for €9,000 at Whyte's Auctions

    'CUP AND PAN BLUES'

    • Price Realised: €9,000
    • Sale: 26 April 2005
    • lithograph
    • 58 by 88cm., 23 by 34.5in.
  • GREEN PREDOMINATING, 1976 by William Scott sold for €8,000 at Whyte's Auctions

    'GREEN PREDOMINATING, 1976'

    • Price Realised: €8,000
    • Sale: 19 February 2007
    • lithograph
    • 57 by 77cm., 22.2 5 by 30.2 5i
  • POT AND PAN by William Scott sold for €7,000 at Whyte's Auctions

    'POT AND PAN'

    • Price Realised: €7,000
    • Sale: 19 November 2002
    • gouache on paper
    • 21 by 26cm., 8.25 by 10.2in.
  • STILL LIFE, 1988 by William Scott sold for €6,800 at Whyte's Auctions

    'STILL LIFE, 1988'

    • Price Realised: €6,800
    • Sale: 17 September 2007
    • lithograph (no. 12 from an edition of 100)
    • 58 by 77cm., 22.7 5 by 30.5in.
  • STILL LIFE WITH LEMON by William Scott sold for €6,600 at Whyte's Auctions

    'STILL LIFE WITH LEMON'

    • Price Realised: €6,600
    • Sale: 28 November 2006
    • lithograph in colours (no. 24 from an edition of 100)
    • 59 by 77cm., 23.2 5 by 30.5in.
  • PAN AND BOWL, BLUES ON GREEN, 1970 by William Scott sold for €6,400 at Whyte's Auctions

    'PAN AND BOWL, BLUES ON GREEN, 1970'

    • Price Realised: €6,400
    • Sale: 21 February 2006
    • silkscreen print; artist's proof from an edition of 100
    • 59 by 77cm., 23.2 by 30.5in.
  • BLACK PAN, BEIGE CUP ON BROWN, 1970 by William Scott sold for €6,400 at Whyte's Auctions

    'BLACK PAN, BEIGE CUP ON BROWN, 1970'

    • Price Realised: €6,400
    • Sale: 21 February 2006
    • silkscreen print; artist's proof from an edition of 100
    • 60 by 78cm., 23.5 by 30.75in.
  • STILL LIFE WITH LEMON, 1988 by William Scott sold for €6,200 at Whyte's Auctions

    'STILL LIFE WITH LEMON, 1988'

    • Price Realised: €6,200
    • Sale: 26 November 2018
    • lithograph in colours; (from an edition of 100 plus proofs and trials)
    • 23 x 30½in. (58.42 x 77.47cm)
  • PORTRAIT OF A GIRL, 1948 by William Scott sold for €6,000 at Whyte's Auctions

    'PORTRAIT OF A GIRL, 1948'

    • Price Realised: €6,000
    • Sale: 17 September 2007
    • lithograph (no. 5 from an edition of 60)
    • 43 by 33cm., 17 by 13in.
  • ODEON SUITE I by William Scott sold for €5,800 at Whyte's Auctions

    'ODEON SUITE I'

    • Price Realised: €5,800
    • Sale: 29 November 2005
    • lithograph (artist's proof set aside from an edition of 75)
    • 50 by 62cm., 19.5 by 24.5in.
  • STILL LIFE WITH LEMON, 1988 by William Scott sold for €5,400 at Whyte's Auctions

    'STILL LIFE WITH LEMON, 1988'

    • Price Realised: €5,400
    • Sale: 01 October 2018
    • lithograph in colours (no. 36 from an edition of 100)
    • 23 x 30½in. (58.42 x 77.47cm)
  • WHITE BOWL, BLACK PAN ON BROWN, 1970 by William Scott sold for €5,400 at Whyte's Auctions

    'WHITE BOWL, BLACK PAN ON BROWN, 1970'

    • Price Realised: €5,400
    • Sale: 29 September 2008
    • screenprint (no. 9 from an edition of 100)
    • 59 by 77cm., 23.2 5 by 30.2 5i
  • ODEON SUITE II by William Scott sold for €5,400 at Whyte's Auctions

    'ODEON SUITE II'

    • Price Realised: €5,400
    • Sale: 29 November 2005
    • lithograph (artist's proof set aside from an edition of 75)
    • 50 by 62cm., 19.5 by 24.5in.
  • SUMMER SUITE WITH BLUE, 1976 by William Scott sold for €5,200 at Whyte's Auctions

    'SUMMER SUITE WITH BLUE, 1976'

    • Price Realised: €5,200
    • Sale: 01 October 2018
    • lithograph in colour on wove paper; (no. 15 from an edition of 40)
    • 22 x 30in. (55.88 x 76.20cm)
prev
next
Whyte's Auctions
Licensed to conduct auctions by The Property Services Regulatory Authority of Ireland. Licence No. 001759
Useful Links
  • Bid Live
  • Auctions
  • News
  • Contact Us
  • Terms & Conditions
Contact +353 (0)1 676 2888 info@whytes.ie 38 Molesworth St
Dublin
D02 KF80
Ireland
Social