William Scott

Identity:

William Scott was an architect, painter, watercolourist, etcher and lithographer.

Life:

In 1876 Scott was living at 3 Great Woodstock Street. In 1881 he was elected to the membership of the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers and Engravers. He was active as an exhibitor between 1880 and 1897, showing in London at the Royal Academy, Royal Institute of Oil Painters, Royal Society of Painter-Etchers and Engravers and Society of British Artists, a society that appointed Whistler its President in 1886. He also exhibited at the Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts, Royal Society of Artists in Birmingham and Manchester Art Gallery.

Scott primarily painted and etched Venetian subjects. He was in Venice at the same time as Whistler in the early 1880s and was friendly with the artist. He would attend Whistler's Sunday breakfasts when 'The latest pastels used to be brought out for inspection'. He told the Pennels that 'Whistler would always show his sketches in his own way, or not at all. In the absence of a proper easel and a proper light, they were usually laid on the floor.' In 1890 Scott wrote congratulating Whistler on the publication of Whistler, James McNeill, The Gentle Art of Making Enemies, London, 1890 , which he read 'with delight' and asking advice concerning tailors in London that Whistler had apparently promised would clothe him better than 'Venetian snippers' (#05400).

Bibliography:

Pennell, Elizabeth Robins, and Joseph Pennell, The Life of James McNeill Whistler, 2 vols, London and Philadelphia, 1908 ; Bénézit, E., Dictionnaire des Peintres Sculpteurs Dessinateurs et Graveurs, 8 vols, Paris, 1956-61; Johnson, J., and A. Gruetzner, Dictionary of British Artists 1880-1940, Woodbridge, 1980; MacDonald, Margaret F., Palaces in the Night: Whistler in Venice, Aldershot and California, 2001 .