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Artist or Maker: William Scott, R.A. (1913-1989)
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Provenance: Purchased by the present owner at the 1986 exhibition.
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Exhibited: London, Royal Academy, 1986, no. 541.
Sheffield, Mappin Art Gallery, on loan until October 1994.
Dublin, Irish Museum of Modern Art, on loan, 1995-2006.
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Literature: Korn Ferry Prize, 1986 (jointly with John Hoyland); judges were Richard Cork, Allen Jones, R.A., Geoffrey Clarke and Leonard Manasseh.
N. Lynton, William Scott, London, 2004, p. 359, fig. 80, illustrated.
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Notes: This painting is one of the last in the artist's oeuvre. By the 1970s Scott was painting large nudes on large canvases, towards the 1980s the nudes which followed were horizontal, reclining nudes, usually shown complete and uncompressed, from head to foot. Evoking references to Giorgione's and Titian's Venuses and Manet's Olympia, the artist explored several variations of the theme. Large Reclining Nude (1980, private collection) shows a sleeping figure, naked apart from her shoes lying on a bed against a strong green background; in Reclining Nude - Orange Pillow (1980-82, private collection) the figure is naked, her face turned towards the viewer but with large blank eyes, rejecting engagement. The present view depicts a figure, awake with her arms raised and hands behind her head, her eyes open but looking beyond the viewer, the figure dividing the picture plane into two colours, a warm ochre and cool grey-blue. These nudes evoke the classical tradition quite directly, in their idealization, their wholeness, their stillness, and the fine balance between picturing something known in reality and a physically remote image (op. cit 346-351).
Scott was the winner of the first prize at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition in 1985. In the following year this painting was joint winner (with John Hoyland) of the Korn Ferry Prize. The Judges were Richard Cork, Allen Jones R.A., Geoffrey Clarke, R.A., and Leonard Manasseh, R.A. Since its purchase at the Summer Exhibition in 1986 by the present owner, the painting has been exhibited on long term loan at the Mappin Art Gallery, Sheffield until October 1994 and then the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin.
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