William Scott

William Scott CBE RA 
British
(1913 – 1989)

Was a British artist born in Greenock Scotland, best known for his still-life and abstract paintings. He is the most internationally celebrated of 20th-century Ulster painters. From 1946 until 1956 Scott was the senior lecturer in painting at the Bath Academy of Art. In the summer of 1953, he visited the USA where he met Jackson Pollock, Elaine de Kooning, Franz Kline and Mark Rothko. Although his work had become predominantly abstract in 1952, after his meeting with the American Abstract Expressionists he reverted to his roots in still life and European painting. 

In 1959-1961 he executed a mural for the Altnagelvin Hospital, Derry. In 1958 he represented Great Britain at the Venice Biennale. In 1972, the Tate Gallery mounted a major retrospective which included more than 125 paintings dating from 1938 onwards.  He died at his home near Bath, Somerset in 1989 after a long battle with Alzheimer's disease.