Creative Growth is pleased to announce that a major work of art by William Scott, an artist at Creative Growth since 1992, has been acquired by The Museum of Modern Art in New York. The large-scale untitled canvas from 2018 was gifted to MoMA by collectors Martin and Rebecca Eisenberg in memory of Michael Lynne. Scott’s painting joins four of his works on paper, as well as work by fellow Creative Growth artists Dan Miller and Judith Scott already in MoMA’s collection.
From Martin Eisenberg:
“William Scott is one of the great artists in America. Rebecca and I are proud to be a part of The Museum of Modern Art’s recent acquisition of one of his large-scale paintings, but the true heroes are the people at Creative Growth who have provided William with both love and support, enabling him to produce this fantastic body of work. Matthew Higgs introduced Rebecca and me to William’s work by showing it at White Columns; without Matthew’s devotion to providing artists with disabilities a platform to show their art none of this would have happened. Matthew is a true visionary who is changing lives. Congratulations, William. All of us are proud of your accomplishments.”
From Matthew Higgs, Director, White Columns:
“Congratulations to William Scott and everyone at Creative Growth on the occasion of MoMA’s acquisition of William’s work for their permanent collection. I couldn’t be happier for William and his family. I met William almost twenty years ago on my first visit to Creative Growth’s Oakland studio, and would go on to organize three solo exhibitions of his work in New York and Paris. That initial visit to Creative Growth would pretty much change everything I thought about art and my subsequent relationship with it. It has been an extraordinary privilege to collaborate with Creative Growth and its artists over the past two decades and to witness the growing audiences for their work and the visionary ideas of Creative Growth’s founders, Florence Ludin-Katz and Elias Katz. Creative Growth is such a profoundly vital and life-affirming organization. Every community should have its own ‘Creative Growth’! Long live Creative Growth!”
William Scott has spent the past 25 years at Creative Growth developing a meticulous drawing and painting style that explores an alternative past, present, and future. His work has been featured in the For Freedoms project, the largest public art project in US history, and is represented in private and public collections worldwide, including The Studio Museum in Harlem, the Oakland Museum of California, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
William Scott, Untitled (WS 267), 2018, Acrylic on canvas, 64 x 48 inches