Page 38 - Studio International - January 1965

William Scott

1
2 Photo: Crispin Eurich

William Scott is one of those British painters, who have
reached middle age and international fame by the quiet
pursuit of their art, looking, as is the practice of artists,
to themselves and their colleagues for the sustenance
of ideas and aims in their plastic medium. This new
book* edited by Alan Bowness in close collaboration
with the artist presents a handsome bound monograph
that does justice to the work of a painter whose impact
is not conveyed by reproductions but in the subtle .,
and solid presence of his canvases. In his lucid and
progressive text Alan Bowness writes the account
chronological of stylistic changes and geographical
journeys. But, as he must, he leaves the artist to speak
for himself chiefly through the illustrations of the
paintings, 150 of them no less, beautifully printed and
23 of them in full colour.
Scott began life far from the metropolitan background
of art and culture. He was born in Greenock where
shipyards and sugar refineries cannot obscure the slow
contours on the Clyde's northern shore that rise to the
bens of Argyll. As a boy of ten he went to his father's
native Ulster and began his art training there. Then it ,.
was London and the Royal Academy Schools, winning

*William Scott :Paintings. Edited with an introduction by Alan Bowness and
contributions by Michel Ragon and Werner Schmalenbach. 11 ¾ X 9½ in. 40 pp.
text+ 150 plates (Lund Humphries. London). £3 1 Os.
26