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Indianapolis native William Scott studied in France with the celebrated African American artist Henry O. Tanner.

Etaples, Tanner’s summer residence, was the subject of several of Scott’s paintings.

Tanner’s influence is evident in the blue-green palette, subdued tonality and dramatic light.

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William Edouard Scott

Rainy Night, Etaples, 1912

oil on canvas

25 ½ x 31 in.

Gift of a Group of African American Citizens of Indianapolis

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William Scott was an Indianapolis native and a graduate of Emmerich Manual Training High School and briefly attended Saturday school at the John Herron Art Institute.  He became the first African American to teach in the Indianapolis Public Schools. He studied first at the Art Institute of Chicago and then in France. A versatile painter Scott achieved great fame as a mural artist.  His murals can be found in schools, government buildings, funeral homes, churches and numerous public buildings.  He traveled to Haiti to paint and completed numerous images of Haitian life.  Scott was one of only a few African Americans to make a living exclusively as an artist.

Shortly after Scott arrived in France in 1909, the celebrated African American expatriate artist, Henry Ossawa Tanner, invited him to stay at his summer home in Normandy.  A few years later, Scott depicted the area around Tanner’s home in Rainy Night, Etaples.  Tanner’s influence is evident in the painting’s blue-green palette, subdued tonality and dramatic lighting.  The loosely brushed, spontaneous composition demonstrates the restrained impressionist technique that dominated Scott’s European work.  The building in the painting was identified as the town hall in Etaples, France.

Reference

William E. Taylor and Harriet G. Warkel. A Shared Heritage: Art by Four African Americans, Indianapolis: Indianapolis Museum of Art, 1996.  ISBN-13: 978-0936260624