Artist Database

William Scott, born in Scotland and raised in Northern Ireland, was considered one of the foremost artists in the Modernist movement in the UK. He is most well-known for his still life paintings featuring flattened tabletops with food, pots, pans, and other kitchen implements; everyday items rendered in the space between abstraction and figuration (and, later, in the 1970’s, minimalism). Their simplicity was a plainness that he found beautiful.

Among his many accomplishments and accolades, Scott exhibited his work at the 1958 Venice Biennale alongside Kenneth Armitage and Stanley William Hayter and he won the Sanbra Purchase Prize at the São Paulo Bienal, Brazil in 1961. In recognition of his contribution to the arts, he was named a Commanded of the British Empire (CBE) in 1966. His work can be found in private and public collections around the world such as the Tate Collection, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney.