Pears on a plate

WILLIAM SCOTT CBE RA

Greenock 1913 - 1989 Somerset

Ref: CC 101

Pears on a plate

Signed on the reverse: W SCOTT

Oil on canvas: 20 ¼ x 28 in / 51.4 x 71.1 cm

Frame size: 21 ¾ x 29 ¾ in / 55.2 x 75.6 cm

In a painted tray frame

Painted circa 1956

Provenance

Sotheby’s London, 25th June 1980, lot 134

New Art Centre, London [CNAC 856];

Commercial Union, 1982, acquired by Francis Sandilands, Chairman, from the above;

Christie’s London, 4th November 1983, lot 145

Gimpel Fils, London and New Art Centre, London

Richard and Elaine Kaufman

Exhibited:

London, Gimpels Fils, William Scott. Every Picture Tells a Story, 26th February-30th March 1985, no.6

Belfast, Ulster Museum, Arts Council of Northern Ireland, William Scott, 13th June-16th November 1986, no.30, illus.; the exhibition then toured to Dublin and Edinburgh

Literature:

Sarah Whitfield (ed), William Scott Catalogue Raisonné of Oil Paintings, vol. 2, Thames & Hudson in association with Wiliam Scott Foundation, London 2013, no.281, illus. in colour p.135

William Scott painted pears throughout his career, from Still life, 1935, to one of his final works in 1986, Single blue pear (both private collections). He chose to gift a Still life with pears, 1957, to the Royal Academy of Arts as his diploma work upon being elected full Academician in May 1984. During the mid-1950s Scott also painted, Two pears on a plate (Hatton Gallery, University of Newcastle), Three pears, pan, plate and knife (Hepworth Wakefield) and Pots and pear (Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide). The artist included the latter in his 1959 British Council Lecture, remarking that, ‘the pots and pears in this picture have certain shapes that I always use. They’re shapes that have come about very slowly through the years, they’ve evolved from my original early paintings. Perhaps they are very fundamental shapes. Some people may feel that there’s some kind of primitive erotic feeling about them. If that is so, it’s probably due to my love for the primitive and elemental.’[1]

In a return to naturalism in his celebrated still life subject, Scott’s bountiful fruit sings out from the mainly monochromatic setting of black, white and grey in this striking work. Sculpturally defined in rich emerald green, olive and ochre, the thickly painted pears bounded by dense black outlines are dramatically lit and luxuriously rendered against the bright white plate and muted grey table. 

[1] Cited in Sarah Whitfield (ed), William Scott Catalogue Raisonné of Oil Paintings, vol. 2, Thames & Hudson in association with Wiliam Scott Foundation, London 2013, cat.no.254, p.108.