Scottie Wilson

Blue Swans, Color Pencil on Paper by Scottie Wilson

circa 1960

Scottie Wilson was born Louis Freeman in 1888. Wilson was an ‘Outsider’ artist known particularly for his highly detailed style. He started his career relatively late at the age of 44 and was admired and collected by the likes of Jean Dubuffet, Pablo Picasso and Andre Breton. He started painting after doodling with one of the ink pens he sold in his shop. It seemed to be a seamless process and within a couple of days, he had covered the whole of the tabletop with little faces and designs. He never stopped after that point. He had a deep personal code of morality and characters called ‘evils’ and ‘greedies’ are juxtaposed with symbols of goodness and truth. He found it difficult to part with this work but decided it was preferable to shopkeeping. He had a deep distrust for art dealers but was persuaded to have a solo exhibition with the arcade gallery in London shown at the same time with works by Picasso, De Chirico, Paul Klee and Joan Miró. His rejection of commercialism was unabated and he continued to sell his work on the street for a minute fraction of the price the gallery owners were asking. He said of the working-class customers, he was attracted, “they’re the intellect you know!” He spent his remaining years in Kilburn, in the 1950s, he was persuaded to travel to France by the outsider art fanatic Jean Dubuffet and was met by no less than Pablo Picasso, who were both fans. Both Dubuffet and Picasso fiercely squabbled over who would buy which piece.