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Mullins noted in his book on Wallis, Houses with Horse Rider is concerned with 'the relationship of experience to expression, of materials to imagination, of light and colour in landscape to light and colour in paint.' In other words, it is all about precisely the problems and challenges that faced Scott in his work. The painting of his own that Scott swapped is a small oil called Bowl (1962), which remains in the Kettle's Yard collection. In the Scott archive is an interesting correspondence between Scott and Ede about the relative values of the pictures. Both parties had to be satisfied of the equality of the exchange, and such issues are often incredibly sensitive and difficult to resolve. However, a mutually satisfactory resolution was achieved, with a splendid Wallis joining Scott's collection and his own work being represented in one of the finest small museums in Great Britain. table-top motif that had been a mainstay of his art. Certainly a keen interest in the material quality of the paint surface was something shared by both artists. Another connection made through the Martha Jackson Gallery was with the American abstract painter Paul Jenkins (1923-2012), who is represented in the Scott collection by three paintings from the early 1960s. Whether these works were exchanged, gifted or purchased remains to be established, but their distinctive veils and skeins of radiant colour, like the subtlest and richest of ceramic glazes, are remarkably beguiling. There is drama in this apparently spontaneous flow of pigment, and a hint of underlying menace, a troubling and wayward incandescence. Peter Lanyon (1918-64) was never a close friend of Scott's as Hilton or Heron were, though Scott was sympathetic to his work and had him appointed to a part-time teaching post at Corsham in 1950. It is significant that the Lanyon in the Scott collection, a delightful small abstracted landscape, was purchased from the artist and not exchanged. The Catalan artist Antoni Tapies (1923-2012), did however become a warm friend of Scott's, after they met in Venice in 1958 when both were representing their countries at the Biennale. Scott admired the 'art brut' nature of Tapies' paintings and mixed media works, his use of significant marks, signs and symbols, and bought a 1970 collage from the Martha Jackson Gallery, where both artists showed in New York. Norbert Lynton thought that Tapies' example might have encouraged Scott to work on larger canvases and to abandon the Mary and William Scott. Photo: © James Scott. Photograph courtesy of the William Scott Foundation. 11

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