拍品專文
We are very grateful to The William Scott Foundation for their assistance in preparing this catalogue entry.
Untitled White and Blue was painted in 1965, the year that Scott produced his large-scale Berlin Blues series. In November 1963 he was invited by the Ford Foundation to do a twelve-month residency in West Berlin, as part of their artist-in-residence programme to re-establish West Berlin as a place of cultural vitality. Its purpose was to counteract the years of isolation imposed by Nazi rule and of post-War austerity, and to '[purge] the anti-German sentiment built up during the war' (N. Lynton, William Scott, London, 2004, p. 277).
Scott quickly settled in, and he and his wife Mary plunged into the cultural and artistic life of the city, staying on for several months at the end of his residency. Before the end of 1964, Scott was mainly painting with blues, the particular pigment he had discovered whilst in Berlin, often within a field of white. 'The blue forms are given soft edges that melt slightly into the white ground, and the white ground is often given a blueish tinge' (N. Lynton, William Scott, London, 2004, pp. 279-280). On his return to Britain, he painted a series of large canvases with complex motifs, which were titled Berlin Blues, and numbered sequentially. It was from this period that the present work emerged.
Untitled White and Blue was painted in 1965, the year that Scott produced his large-scale Berlin Blues series. In November 1963 he was invited by the Ford Foundation to do a twelve-month residency in West Berlin, as part of their artist-in-residence programme to re-establish West Berlin as a place of cultural vitality. Its purpose was to counteract the years of isolation imposed by Nazi rule and of post-War austerity, and to '[purge] the anti-German sentiment built up during the war' (N. Lynton, William Scott, London, 2004, p. 277).
Scott quickly settled in, and he and his wife Mary plunged into the cultural and artistic life of the city, staying on for several months at the end of his residency. Before the end of 1964, Scott was mainly painting with blues, the particular pigment he had discovered whilst in Berlin, often within a field of white. 'The blue forms are given soft edges that melt slightly into the white ground, and the white ground is often given a blueish tinge' (N. Lynton, William Scott, London, 2004, pp. 279-280). On his return to Britain, he painted a series of large canvases with complex motifs, which were titled Berlin Blues, and numbered sequentially. It was from this period that the present work emerged.