An artist whose work changed markedly from rather traditional still life painting to abstraction, William Scott was born in Scotland and at age eleven, in 1924, moved with his family to County Fermanagh in Northern Ireland. There he studied at the Model School and took night classes from Kathleen Bridle at the Technical School. In 1928, he enrolled in the Belfast College of Art, and in 1931, began study on a Landseer Scholarship at the Royal Academy School in London.

In the late 1930s, he married and lived primarily in France including the early years of World War II. He helped to run an art school and then went to Dublin and then to London. From 1942 to 1946, he served with the Royal Engineers of England, do...