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VARIOUS PROPERTIES

BLUE, GREY, WHITE

103 by 128cm., 40 1/2 by 50 1/2 in.

signed

oil on canvas

PROVENANCE

Galerie Charles Lienhard, Zurich
Sale, Christie's, London, 3^rd November 1967, lot 193 (sold £250)
Sale, Sotheby's, London, 14^th March 1973, lot 184 (sold £420)
Private Collection
Gimpel Fils, London, 1984, whence purchased by the present owner.

EXHIBITED

Hanover, Kestner-Gesellschaft, 1960, no.47.

NOTE

The present work is listed with the William Scott Archive as no. 1322.

Having returned from a brief essay into abstraction in the early 1950s Scott had, to a large extent, concentrated for much of the rest of the decade on the still-life subject of his early career.

However, as the paintings developed, the objects themselves became less and less important, their forms becoming increasingly simplified and distorted, and their importance lying in their use as formal compositional elements. Freed from a need to keep the recognisable form of the object, Scott became ever more willing to use each one as a vehicle for textural diversity, either heightening a colour contrast with the brushwork, or in some paintings using the paint handling itself to delineate forms within a like-coloured background. Similarly the setting of the image could be manipulated, with the suggested planes of a still life composition becoming an equally weighted element in the image.

The scale of Scott's work had been steadily expanding during the later years of the decade, and the present work demonstrates the expansive and free handling that was characteristic of his larger canvas paintings of the period. Simplified forms float and drift across the picture surface, and in their indulgent and enjoyable richness of texture demonstrate the prevalence of a strong European tradition of painterliness which may be seen as a reaction to the absence of history in contemporary American art. In Blue, Grey, White, Scott has broken down the recognisable elements of a still life to such an extent that it appears at first sight to be entirely abstract. However, closer inspection begins to suggest the line of the edge of the table dividing the picture plane and the vestiges of the familiar forms float under the surface. By removing their obvious connotations, the forms were released by the artist to act as simple signifiers and mark a path forward towards the full abstraction Scott would achieve in the early 1960s. One distinguishing feature of Scott's work at this time is the supremely confident and varied handling of the paint surface which is seen at its very best in the present painting. The range of textures that are drawn together here are quite remarkable in their variance of surface and tone.