WHYTE'S IMPORTANT IRISH ART 29 NOVEMBER 2021 AT 6PM

42 32 William Scott CBE RA (1913-1989) VIEW OF AN ULSTER VILLAGE, 1941 watercolour signed, dated and inscribed [“in exchange for a lovely drawing by Fay”] lower right 16 by 20in. (40.6 by 50.8cm) Frame Dimensions: 25.25 by 29in. (64.1 by 73.7cm) Provenance: Sotheby’s, London, 24 April 1985 lot 403; Private Collection; Morgan O’Driscoll, 19 April 2021, lot 33; Private collection Exhibited: Piccadilly Gallery, London, February 1993; Colyer Bristow, 4 Bedford Gardens, London, March 1993 Literature: William Scott Foundation Archive No. 1343 Inscribed with the date ‘41-when gifted by the artist to his friend Fay Pearce-this work depicts a village in the North of Ireland, consisting of a long street flanked by two-storey houses, with a church and green hills in the distance. Scott has emphasised the angularity of the buildings, contrasting their white gables with dark slated roofs. Although the location of the town is not certain, the artist’s son Robert Scott suggests that the view is of Enniskillen, but it is more likely to be anearby village in Fermanagh in Tyrone. Scott’s family moved to Enniskillen when he was 11 and he went to school there, later attending the Belfast School of Arts and the RA School, London. The watercolour is inscribed ‘William Scott in exchange for a lovely drawing by Fay .41’ and bears a label on the reverse ‘Robin Pearce was Wm Scott’s best man (Fay his wife).’ Robin Pearce and his wife Fay were indeed good friends of the Scotts. A photograph in the Scott Archive shows the two couples together at the Pearce’s cottage in Crouch, Dorset, in 1937. After marrying on 19th May of that year, William Scott and Mary Lucas initially lived in London before moving to the Continent. Intending to set up an art school in Pont Aven, on the outbreak of war they were forced to flee France, and after a spell in Dublin, decided to settle in England for the duration. During the war years they moved between London and the Home Counties. In July 1940 when the Scotts’ flat at Earls Court was damaged in an air raid, they lived for a time at Hampstead with the Pearces. Scott enlisted in the Royal Engineers, and, with the assistance of Kenneth Clark, chairman of the War Artists Advisory Committee, was posted to Wales, to work in a mapping office run by the Ordnance Section. However in 1942, through the war years and after, his work was shown in the Leicester Galleries’ regular exhibitions, ‘Artists of Fame and Promise’, and in 1942 he even managed to have a solo exhibition at the Leger Galleries in London. Robin and Fay Pearce (née Grant White) were both painters. Born in 1913, Robin Pearce studied with Keith Henderson and at the Royal Academy Schools. In 1936 he directed the documentary film Happy Hampstead. The following year he married Fay, who was of Scots and French family and had studied at the Penzance Art School under James Lias, before going on to the Stroud School in Gloucestershire and Kennington School in London. She specialised in harbour scenes and still lives, and among the collectors of her work was the actor Marius Goring. In March 1944, Fay and Robin exhibited together at the Leicester Galleries. [With thanks to Robert Scott of the William Scott Foundation for information on the cataloguing of this work.] Peter Murray, March 2021 €8,000-€10,000 (£6,780-£8,470 approx.) Click here for more images and to bid on this lot32