Still Life Variations 2

Norbert Lynton comments on the series of paintings which Scott embarked upon in 1969, 'the new compositions may have been arrived at by moving paper shapes over the canvas. Vestigial forms, indicating changes of mind, are now rare. Much the same set of objects is used throughout: a frying pan, its handle pointing straight up, round-bottomed bowls with flat tops, slightly squarer and usually smaller bowls without any straight sides, and an occasional dish, oval or elliptical. The dishes and the frying pans are seen from above, like plans; the bowls are seen in profile. This difference is not striking because it works idiomatically even though it is illogical in terms of visual realism. Sometimes a bowl is represented, in the chastest of lines, as though tilted towards us. The lines are never mechanical but put in freehand, with varying degrees of handwriting character (N. Lynton, William Scott, London, 2004, p. 311).

Other large-scale works from the late 1960s are in important collections; Still Life Brown with Black Note, 1969, is in the collection of the Bank of Ireland Group, and Blue Still Life with Knife, 1971, is in the collection of Allied Irish Bank.