![William Scott - Fish [1982] by Gandalf's Gallery](http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3546/13006116095_6a6916f50b.jpg)
In 1980, Scott travelled to Osaka, Japan, to oversee the hanging of his solo exhibition at the Gallery Kasahara. He respected the Japanese appreciation for understatement and the trip was to revive his purist inclinations. On return home, he began to revisit a favoured theme - fish. But these were different to what had gone before, now his fish became "a lively, fresh and pushy creature"
Painted two years after his Osaka show, Fish (1982) appears to almost be smiling at us. The artist has succeeded here in injecting a sense of humour and curiosity that engages the viewer, in a way the earlier fish did not. Rendered in a peaceful palette of white, beige and black, there is poetry in its simplicity which is closely repeated in Single Fish with Shadow 1983 (Private Collection) from the following year. In this version, the fish faces the opposite direction but offers the same expressive character.
[Sold for £61,250 at Bonhams, London - Oil on canvas, 40.5 x 50.8 cm]