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Lot Essay
Writing in 1954, Scott pointed out, 'Every painting I do is related to the last one: it may be a continuation of a previous painting or it may be a reaction against it'. Specific visual vocabulary comes and goes and in Scott's case, often stays. The frying basket carrying the egg can be seen as early as 1948 with Frying Basket and Eggs (National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa) and continues to the present composition and leads onto a picture called Wire Basket and Eggs No. 2 (private collection) both from 1950. The table top, bowl and frying basket (or pan) reappear as the square, circle and heavy line (or slim rectangle) of the later abstract pictures. The individual components have compositional functions as well as having childhood associations which adds significance for the artist. 1950 is a critical date in Scott's career and in many ways can be seen as the apogée of his purely figurative works. By 1951, his recognizable still life objects are increasingly becoming forms and by the mid-50s he moved completely to abstraction being more concerned with space and composition than a group of objects together. The beginnings of this transformation may be legible in Bowl and Frying Basket.
Alan Bowness comments on these pictures, 'Scott Himself realizes some of the implications in the next group of still life subjects, painted between 1949 and 1951, The Colander, Beans and Eggs of 1948 introduces the new motif. In the artist's own words: 'it is probably one of the first instances when I make a double image, in that the picture has even less meaning than it had before as a number of objects coming together. These objects now take on another meaning, which is obscure, and I don't personally like to point it out.' Scott's proper reluctance to explain his pictures in words must be respected, and as with so much twentieth-century art the meaning of the visual image cannot be contained in a verbal paraphrase. But there is obviously a sexual suggestiveness about the still lifes of this group, an erotic quality that arises out of the placing of the simple kitchen objects in such a way that they represent male and female figures ... Scott has said 'Behind the facade of pots and pans there is sometimes another image - it's a private one, ambiguous, and can perhaps be sensed rather than seen. This image which I can't describe animates my forms. It's the secret in the picture'. No purpose would be served in attempting to lay bare the secrets of these still lifes of 1949-51, with their strange, spikey and ovoid forms. One must, however, raise the matter because the erotic, sensual element is so important a concomitant to the rather puritanical austerity of Scott's art ... Scott did not pursue this kind of painting, perhaps because the symbolism was becoming too explicit, and he could no longer sustain the sense of daring with which he had been placing and juxtaposing his innocent objects. The double image is not banished from his work - quite the reverse - but it becomes suppressed, more deeply buried in the picture, as if lying at unconscious levels of experience. The sensuality too has to be expressed in another, less obvious, way. This is done essentially through the paint surface itself, which assumes increasing importance throughout the 'fifties' (see A. Bowness, William Scott: paintings, London, 1964, p. 8).
Alan Bowness comments on these pictures, 'Scott Himself realizes some of the implications in the next group of still life subjects, painted between 1949 and 1951, The Colander, Beans and Eggs of 1948 introduces the new motif. In the artist's own words: 'it is probably one of the first instances when I make a double image, in that the picture has even less meaning than it had before as a number of objects coming together. These objects now take on another meaning, which is obscure, and I don't personally like to point it out.' Scott's proper reluctance to explain his pictures in words must be respected, and as with so much twentieth-century art the meaning of the visual image cannot be contained in a verbal paraphrase. But there is obviously a sexual suggestiveness about the still lifes of this group, an erotic quality that arises out of the placing of the simple kitchen objects in such a way that they represent male and female figures ... Scott has said 'Behind the facade of pots and pans there is sometimes another image - it's a private one, ambiguous, and can perhaps be sensed rather than seen. This image which I can't describe animates my forms. It's the secret in the picture'. No purpose would be served in attempting to lay bare the secrets of these still lifes of 1949-51, with their strange, spikey and ovoid forms. One must, however, raise the matter because the erotic, sensual element is so important a concomitant to the rather puritanical austerity of Scott's art ... Scott did not pursue this kind of painting, perhaps because the symbolism was becoming too explicit, and he could no longer sustain the sense of daring with which he had been placing and juxtaposing his innocent objects. The double image is not banished from his work - quite the reverse - but it becomes suppressed, more deeply buried in the picture, as if lying at unconscious levels of experience. The sensuality too has to be expressed in another, less obvious, way. This is done essentially through the paint surface itself, which assumes increasing importance throughout the 'fifties' (see A. Bowness, William Scott: paintings, London, 1964, p. 8).