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. 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.
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. Scott later returned to aid Stark in the school's drawing department after his graduation in 1903—crediting Scott as the first African American to teach in the Indianapolis public school system. Encouraged by Stark, Scott migrated to Chicago to study at the Art Institute, where he graduated in 1907, but continued his classes for two additional years. During his time at the Art Institute, Scott was hired to paint his first of many commissioned murals in local schools, which were some of the "earliest public works depicting African American subjects"—many of which do indeed still exist. Also while at the Art Institute, Scott earned several cash prizes, scholarships, and awards, including the Magnus Brand Memorial Prize for three consecutive years, which allowed Scott to fund his first trip abroad in 1910.
Scott's time in Paris, France, profoundly impacted his life as an artist. The highlight of Scott's experience, however, occurred when he met and studied under the famous American expatriate, Henry Ossawa Tanner, at the artist colony in Trepied-par-Etaples. Tanner invited Scott to join him when he heard of the young artists diminishing funds and rudimentary French communication skills. Tanner's influence manifested itself in many of Scott's works and have a lasting impression on Scott's overall style as painter. Scott's formal training lead to a cultivated twist on academic realist impressionism, and his palette was molded by Tanner's use of greens and blues. He returned to Chicago in 1911 to exhibit his works and fund further study in France.
During two subsequent trips, Scott continued his training at the Academie Julien and Colarossi Academy, where his rigorous studies paid off and he was admitted to the Salon de la Societe des Artistes Francais in Paris both 1912 and 1913. Scott's Paris paintings depict the wretched poverty of French peasants contrasted with the glamor of the bourgeois. Works such as La Pauvre Voisine, Breton Smithy, Rainy Night, and his most famous piece produced while in France, La Misere, all portray class struggle in the style of Tanner's dark and gloomy tones. With La Misere, Scott won the Tanqueray prize of 125 francs, and was able to return to America comfortably.
In 1914 Scott established his studio in Chicago, where he became known as the "dean of Negro artists." He painted a multitude of murals in both Illinois and Indiana and was awarded the gold medal for Distinguished Achievement among resident American Blacks from the Hannon Foundation in 1927. Four of his sketches were presented to New York's International House—the first entirely African American artist exhibition in America. Scott was also invited to attend the Tuskegee Institute as the personal guest of founder Booker T. Washington. While in Alabama, Scott produced many works portraying the dual nature of the grace and struggles of blacks in the American south.
His portraits of Booker T. Washington, George Washington Carver, and Frederick Douglass lauded some of the African American community's greatest champions in steady, earthy, understated tones. Paintings such as It's Going to Come and The Maker of Goblins showed a sense of hope and strength found in the masses of nameless poor blacks. Scott was also hired to produce several covers for W. E. B. DuBois' Crisis, the NAACP magazine. Scott's most famous cover (featured in the 1918 Easter edition) was based on his own grandparent's laborious travels from North Carolina to Indianapolis. Traveling (Lead Kindly Light), now housed in the Huntington Museum of Art in West Virginia, still retains the vestiges of Tanner's restrained palette as it relays the "desperation and apprehension" evident on the faces of the voyagers as they journey through the night with the halo of the lantern guiding the way.
Upon receiving the Julius Rosenwald Fellowship to study Negros in the West Indies, Scott traveled to Haiti. The notion that Haitians, as the first black republic in the Americas, still maintained their unspoiled African heritage along with American occupation of the island and his own knowledge of the French language shaped Scott's decision as he sailed for Port-au-Prince the same year he received the fellowship. Scott experienced his most prolific period as a painter while in Haiti, producing over 144 works. While in Haiti, Scott also abandoned the demure palette he adopted from Tanner in favor of brighter, more vibrant hues, as can be seen in works such as Cockfight, The Citadel, Turkey Vendor, Haitian Market, Mother and Child, and Night Turtle Fishing in Haiti—works that burst with the life and color of the island. One of Scott's most emotional Haitian works depicts the island's liberator, Toussaint L'Ouverture, in the style of Delacroix's Liberty Leading the People with bright yellows, golds, and pulsating greens. Haitian President Stenio Vincent awarded Scott the degree of Nationale Honeure et Merite and purchased twelve of his paintings, which were exhibited in Port-au-Prince.
Scott again returned to America, where he continued to paint murals such as Pilgrim Dwelling and Simeon and the Babe Jesus in Arizona, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, New York City, and West Virginia—including a mural for the 1933 World's Fair in Chicago. He was one of seven artists selected to paint the mural for the Recorder of Deeds Building in Washington, D.C. with his depiction of Frederick Douglass vehemently appealing to President Lincoln to let black soldiers fight in the Civil War. Scott's last trip abroad to Mexico in 1955 was conducted in hopes of repeating his Haitian experience, this time with the inhabitants of rural Mexico. However, disease cut the trip short when Scott was diagnosed with diabetes. He spent the remainder of his life continuing to paint in spite of his failing health, which eventually claimed one of his legs and his eyesight. He was a champion of the experiences of the downtrodden, and through his work he was able to help blacks from Chicago, the American south, and Haiti recognize the beauty of their surroundings and the dignity of their lives.
Written by Shaina D. W. Taylor