William Edouard Scott was born on March 11, 1884 in Indianapolis, Indiana. The son of Caroline Russell and Edward Miles Scott, William enjoyed a comfortable lifestyle thanks to his father's employment in the wholesale grocery business and the relatively small size of his family (Hardman 100). Scott was one of only two children. The environment in which the young Scott grew up lent him "a kind of strength, stability, and continuity" that was often lacking in African American communities of the same period (Hardman 109).

Scott's first formal study of art was with Otto Stark, a Hoosier Group artist and director of Indianapolis's Manual High School art department (Perry). Scott later retur...