William Scott 1913-1989

Blue and White is an exceptionally masterful still life, from a pivotal moment in Scott's career, between 1958 - 1959, in which he moved further towards pure abstraction. While in earlier paintings, such as the Tate Gallery's Winter Still Life, 1956, Scott retained the vestiges of recognisable form in the objects which filled his compositions, in the present work, we see those signifiers of function starting to fall away. Here, the table-top has become less recognisable and the objects themselves, whilst still crowded together in carefully placed groups, are becoming pure painterly elements. It is this ability however which gives Scott’s work of the period its enormously attractive aspects, combining the figurative and abstract with such apparent ease, allowing the viewer to keep or forget the associations of the objects and their settings as one wishes.

It is noticeable how the rigidity of the composition is beginning to disappear, and the lines bend. The undulation of the composition becomes very much at one with the organic qualities of the objects, which have now almost completely lost any recognisable features. These forms seem to float across the picture surface, drifting gently to the outer edges, adding a sense that what we see is only a snapshot of some larger image.