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Lot Essay
Still Life with Egg and Spatula is one of a series of early still life paintings, executed over a period that spanned roughly three years in the late 1940s. In this series Scott developed a vocabulary and manner that would see him emerge as one of the leading young British painters of the early 1950s.
Writing in 1950, on the occasion of a small retrospective at the Whitechapel Gallery in London, Scott was able to review his development in the following terms, ‘During the last ten years I have aimed at expressing my ideas in as direct and simple manner as possible, taking for my subjects things seen, which are common and ordinary, believing that the poetry of the subject will be in the painting of it’ (W. Scott quoted in R. Alley and T.P. Flanagan, exhibition catalogue, William Scott, Belfast, Ulster Museum, 1986, p. 15). Still Life with Egg and Spatula is a wonderful example of this sentiment, the ovoid shape of the frying pan mirrored by the spatula and luminous egg at the centre. Typical of Scott, the tension between the simplicity of compositional arrangements and the richness of the azure bank at the base of the composition avoids any narrative beyond that which is directly present to the viewer.
The present work was a gift from the artist to the dealer, curator, and critic, Jean-Yves Mock. Mock was a champion of the avant-garde, a friend and promoter of artists as diverse as René Magritte and Louise Nevelson. He worked alongside Erica Brausen at the highly influential Hanover Gallery in London between 1956 and 1973, launching the careers of many of the greatest names in twentieth-century art. He later joined the curatorial team at the Pompidou Centre, Paris, organising the first major retrospective of Yves Klein. His significant contribution to the arts was acknowledged by the French State when he was made Chevalier de l’ordre des arts et des lettres in 1985 and awarded L’Ordre du Mérite in 1993.
We are very grateful to The William Scott Foundation for their assistance in cataloguing this lot.
Writing in 1950, on the occasion of a small retrospective at the Whitechapel Gallery in London, Scott was able to review his development in the following terms, ‘During the last ten years I have aimed at expressing my ideas in as direct and simple manner as possible, taking for my subjects things seen, which are common and ordinary, believing that the poetry of the subject will be in the painting of it’ (W. Scott quoted in R. Alley and T.P. Flanagan, exhibition catalogue, William Scott, Belfast, Ulster Museum, 1986, p. 15). Still Life with Egg and Spatula is a wonderful example of this sentiment, the ovoid shape of the frying pan mirrored by the spatula and luminous egg at the centre. Typical of Scott, the tension between the simplicity of compositional arrangements and the richness of the azure bank at the base of the composition avoids any narrative beyond that which is directly present to the viewer.
The present work was a gift from the artist to the dealer, curator, and critic, Jean-Yves Mock. Mock was a champion of the avant-garde, a friend and promoter of artists as diverse as René Magritte and Louise Nevelson. He worked alongside Erica Brausen at the highly influential Hanover Gallery in London between 1956 and 1973, launching the careers of many of the greatest names in twentieth-century art. He later joined the curatorial team at the Pompidou Centre, Paris, organising the first major retrospective of Yves Klein. His significant contribution to the arts was acknowledged by the French State when he was made Chevalier de l’ordre des arts et des lettres in 1985 and awarded L’Ordre du Mérite in 1993.
We are very grateful to The William Scott Foundation for their assistance in cataloguing this lot.