Important 20th century artist, William Scott, pictured in 1961.
William Scott is the most celebrated of the 20th century Ulster painters, best known for his still life and abstract paintings and prints. Born in 1913, he achieved significant success during his 76 years, and his fame has continued to grow since his death.
Interest in William Scott’s art has remained steady for the last two decades, and his work is especially sought-after in the United Kingdom. His pieces can also fetch significant prices; his prints, for instance, account for 58% of his work sold at auction, and they usually reach between £1,000 and £5,000.
Listed below are the six most expensive William Scott prints sold at auction. If you are the owner of a William Scott print and would like to find out how much it is worth, or how to sell it, why not contact Mark Littler today?
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Still Life With Frying Pan And Eggs
This screenprint in colours dates from 1973, and it was sold by Adam’s in May 2022 for £14,549, almost three times its estimated value. By this time in his life, Scott had firmly established his reputation as an important British artist, and he’d even been able to give up teaching to focus entirely on his work. Just the year before this print was made, the Tate held a major retrospective of William Scott’s art which was critically well-received, and which helped secure his legacy.
Still Life With Frying Pan And Eggs sold by Adams in 2022
Cup, Bowl, Pan, Reds And Ochres
William Scott was always open about how much his childhood influenced his art. He once said: “the forms I use are the forms I see about me and the forms I have dreamt about as a child. I was brought up in a grey world, an austere world… The objects I painted were the symbols of the life I knew best.”
In this print from 1970, Scott returned to his favourite familiar objects of kitchen equipment, but he added bright, rich colours to the background of the print, perhaps suggesting he was no longer trapped in the austere world of his childhood. The print is instantly recognisable as being Scott’s work, and it was sold by Morgan O’Driscoll Fine Art Auctioneers in November 2020 for £10,673.
Cup, Bowl, Pan, Reds And Ochres sold by Morgan O’Driscoll in 2020
Untitled (Thirty Five Artists)
Dating from just seven years before Scott’s death, this lithograph in colours was sold by Adam’s in May 2024 for £9,355. The flattened forms of the image are typical of Scott’s work, veering almost into abstraction whilst still retaining an element of still life about them. The artist experimented with both figurative and abstract styles throughout his career, and his mature work is a peculiarly-effective combination of both.
Scott himself once said: “I am an abstract artist in the sense that I abstract. I cannot be called non-figurative while I am still interested in the modern magic of space, primitive sex forms, the sensual and the erotic, disconcerting contours, the things of life.”
Untitled (Thirty Five Artists) sold by Adam’s in 2024
Cornish Harbour
This print was created in 1951, at a time when Scott was teetering on the edge of abstraction (the following year, his work became much more abstract-focused for an extended period). 1951 was also the year of the Festival of Britain, designed to celebrate British achievements, and Scott was one of the artists invited to exhibit his work as part of the celebrations.
The Cornish Harbour print was sold by Sotheby’s in April 2017 for £9,000. It may have been inspired by the time Scott and his family spent in Cornwall in the August of 1951, when they stayed in a small village near Penzance. It was, however, a landscape Scott was familiar with, as he made frequent trips to Cornwall, often visiting the artistic community based in St Ives which included Barbara Hepworth, Ben Nicholson, and Terry Frost.
Cornish Harbour sold by Sotheby’s in 2017
Bottle And Bowl, Blues On Green
This 1970 screenprint is another example of the way William Scott painted still life objects using abstract techniques, and it was sold by Case Antiques Inc. in January 2021 for £8,562. When explaining his choice of mundane, everyday subject matter, Scott once said: “some of my paintings are saucepans and other kitchen utensils on a bare kitchen table, but that does not mean that I’m particularly attracted to frying pans and saucepans. In fact, I think that these things are completely uninteresting. That’s why I paint them; there is no meaning to them at all, but they are the means to making a picture.”
Bottle And Bowl, Blues On Green sold by Case Antiques in 2021
Cup and Pan Blues
This print dates from 1970, and it is an interesting demonstration of Scott’s use of colour and shape to create an image. Though Scott’s still life images may appear simplistic on the surface, to the artist, the flattened forms often contained an underlying symbolism. He once said that: “behind the face of pots and pans there is sometimes another image – it’s a private one, ambiguous, and can perhaps be sensed rather than seen. This image which I can’t describe animates my forms. It’s the secret in the picture.”
Cup and Pan, Blues On Green sold by Bonhams
