William Scott (1913-1989)

William Scott trained at the Belfast College of Art (1928-31), and at the Royal Academy Schools in London (1931-35), where he initially studied sculpture, switching to the painting school only in 1934. In 1935 he was awarded a Leverhulme travelling scholarship. In 1937 he spent several months in Italy and then went to France where he lived and worked mainly at Pont-Aven until the outbreak of the Second World War.

Scott served in the army until 1946, and then taught at the Bath Academy of Art in Corsham from 1946 to 1956. His work was included in the Arts Council exhibition for the Festival of Britain in 1951. A retrospective exhibition of his work was shown at the Venice Biennale in 1958, and he was a prize-winner at the John Moores Exhibition in 1959. He won the Critics’ Prize at the Sao Paolo Bienal in 1961. Scott was Ford Foundation Artist in Residence in Berlin from 1963 to 1964, and taught at the Hamburg Academy in 1965. A major retrospective exhibition of his work was held at the Tate Galley in 1972. He became a Royal Academician in 1984.