About this artwork
Drawing was always important to Scott. His charcoal drawings of 1956 offer more fluid lines than those of 1954, which are angular and brutal at times. Scott’s mode of reduction and reworking are central to these drawings, and build to create a vibrant, energetic composition. This larger-than-life-size work, is distinctly of this period, yet its pose is firmly rooted in art history – referencing Giorgione’s ‘Sleeping Venus’ and Manet’s ‘Olympia’. However, unlike Giorgione’s sleeping beauty, Scott’s nude is very much awake and props herself up. She wears a shoe like Manet’s Olympia, but in contrast her legs are apart rather than elegantly crossed. As Scott stated: “Drawing for me is exploring not explaining, containing geometry, sex, distortion and correction, forms pure and impure”.
Updated before 2020
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artist:
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title:Reclining Nude
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date created:1956
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materials:Black chalk on two sheets of paper
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measurements:74.30 x 207.00 cm (framed 94.50 x 227.00 x 3.90 cm)
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object type:
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credit line:Presented by Miss Erica Brausen, 1973
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accession number:GMA 1278
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gallery:
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subject:
William Scott
William Scott
William Scott was born in Greenock and grew up in Northern Ireland. He studied at Belfast College of Art and at the Royal College of Art, London, from 1931 to 1935. Scott lived in France from 1937 to 1939, teaching art in Brittany. He later became a senior painting lecturer at Bath Academy of Art...