Beschreibung:

Artist: William Scott CBE RA (1913-1989) Title: Jug (1979) Signature: signed and dated '79 verso Medium: oil on canvas Size: 40½ x 40½cm (15.9 x 15.9in) Framed Size: 58 x 58cm (22.8 x 22.8in) Provenance: Jug, 1979 is registered in the William Scott Foundation catalogue raisonne as A155; Gallery Moos Limited, Toronto, Canada (label verso); Private Collection Exhibited: Gallery Moos, Montreal 1979; William Scott Memorial Exhibition Anderson Gallery, Buffalo NY, 26 Sept - 31 Oct 1992, under the title Little Jug; Vase, Vessel, Void, Oliver Sears Gallery, Dublin, 4 Sept - 2 Oct 2014; Literature: Jug, 1979 is registered in the William Scott Foundation catalogue raisonne as A155 a#morebtn { color: #de1d01; } a#morebtn:hover { cursor: pointer;} Although this painting of a jug, or saucepan, dates from relatively late in William Scott’s career, it contains the essential elements of abstraction for which he became renowned. The square format of the canvas suited his search for simplicity. The form of the vessel is delineated with little or no... Read more Although this painting of a jug, or saucepan, dates from relatively late in William Scott’s career, it contains the essential elements of abstraction for which he became renowned. The square format of the canvas suited his search for simplicity. The form of the vessel is delineated with little or no attempt at three dimensional rendering. Although a table is suggested by a band of grey, otherwise the background is featureless. Colour has been reduced to the simplest monochrome tones, of black, white and grey. Skirting warily the domains of abstraction and representational art, as his style developed Scott remained, in his own words, an ‘individualist’. His still-lives, a genre he returned to consistently throughout his life, are essays in the pure tactile and visceral qualities of paint. Born in Greenock, Scotland, at the age of eleven Scott moved with his family to his father's home town of Enniskillen, Co. Fermanagh. After studying at what is now the Belfast College of Art, and the Royal Academy Schools in London, he lived in France in 1938-1939, setting up an art school at Pont-Aven in Brittany. With the onset of WWII, he moved briefly in Dublin before settling in England. Scott’s work from the 1930s and 1940s was predominantly based on still-lives of simple domestic objects but in the 1950s he moved towards pure abstract painting. In 1972 the Tate Gallery staged a retrospective exhibition of his work. Since the early 1930’a, perhaps more than any other Irish artist of the twentieth century (apart from Jack Yeats), Scott’s work has been exhibited worldwide. In 1953, as well as showing at the Sao Paul Bienal, he was introduced by Martha Jackson (at whose New York gallery he had several exhibitions), to Jackson Pollock Franz Kline and Mark Rothko Five years later, he represented Britain at the Venice Biennale, and showed also at galleries in Turin, Milan, Munich and other cities. Note: Although the painting depicts a saucepan, Robert Scott of the William Scott Foundation, confirms that on a consignment invoice sent by the artist to Gallery Moos in 1979 it had the title Jug. Peter Murray, November 2020