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William Scott  1913-1989

William Scott Winter Still Life 1956
© The estate of William Scott
Winter Still Life  1956

Oil on canvas
support: 914 x 1524 mm
painting

Presented by the Contemporary Art Society 1957

T00119
From 1946 on Scott began to flatten the forms in his paintings. He generally painted from memory rather than from actual objects. But some of the articles he used in his still life paintings he kept around him in his studio; they included frying pans and saucepans, images which occur regularly in his work. These things were to become the abstract shapes found in later paintings and also had associations with his childhood memories. Scott said 'I find beauty in plainness, in a conception which is precise, a simple idea which to the observer must inevitably shock and leave a concrete image on the mind.'
 (From the display caption September 2004)