Footnotes

PROVENANCE:
Acquired by the present owner from the 1980 exhibition
Private Collection, U.K.

EXHIBITED:
London, Gimpel Fils, William Scott: Poem for a Jug, 20 May-21 June 1980, cat.no.8

LITERATURE:
Sarah Whitfield (ed.), William Scott, Catalogue Raisonné of Oil Paintings, Volume 4, Thames & Hudson, London, 2013, cat.no.896, p.278, (col.ill, listed as whereabouts unknown)

Throughout 1979 and the spring of 1980 William Scott produced the Poem for a Jug series. Comprising of 26 canvases of various sizes, each incorporates Scott's familiar cutlery and crockery components and are dominated by a simplified jug motif. Shown in its entirety at the Gimpel Fils gallery in 1980, the series appears to have been developed from a group of four small 'jug' paintings shown in Toronto the previous year. These works are exemplary of Scott's later neoclassical still-lifes with their origins in design and balance, rather than the organic expressionism of Scott's earlier works. As Norbert Lynton surmises; 'the music we hear from the new paintings is minimal; its orchestration could hardly be more economical. And yet, we witness in these paintings the progress of an artist of wit and subtlety' (Norbert Lynton, William Scott, Thames & Hudson, London, p.338).

In a letter dated 26 April 1980 to Jean-Yves Mock, Scott elaborates on the title he elected for the series: 'My immediate problem for the catalogue when we discussed it last week was how to title so many works with the same subject. While at Coleford I arrived at the conclusion that one title could cover them all and inspired by Keats I decided to call it 'Poem for a Jug' using "Poem" rather than "Ode" and "Jug" rather than "Urn".' (Sarah Whitfield, William Scott; Catalogue Raisonné of Oil Painting, Volume 4, Thames & Hudson, London, p.258). Scott is undoubtedly referring to John Keats 1819 poem Ode on a Grecian Urn. The final lines of which – 'Beauty is truth, truth beauty, -that is all/Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know' sparked critical debate throughout the 20th century that may well have captured Scott's imagination.