1511881064Scottie Wilson18911972Creatures that appear halfway between plant and animal, their colorful forms made up of hundreds of closely hatched ink lines, populate Scottie Wilson’s most fantastic art. Other drawings are more grounded in reality yet still dreamlike, with birds in flight and buoyant fish moving through trees and flowers. Still others are clownish self-portraits or more menacing figures, such as the “greedies,” whom he characterized as working against all that is good, depicted with sinister expressions. Wilson often left his works purposely untitled and their meaning up to the viewer; some theorize that his taxidermist father influenced his bestial illustrations; others, that his time in Canada inspired the totem pole-like forms. As he told the <em>Ottawa Journal</em> in 1963, “Aye, birds, trees, and flowers—That’s me. Don't ask me what they mean. . . . Some people can feel it; were born with it. It’s all in me.” He was born Lewis Freeman into a Jewish family in Glasgow in 1891. The dates and events of his life are difficult to pin down, as he retold his story in different ways over the years. He left school at a young age, and as a teenager he joined the army. Starting around 1932, he spent about thirteen years in Canada, where he worked for a time as a junk dealer in Toronto. As he would relate, he was compelled one day, while listening to classical music, to take up a fountain pen and draw faces and decorative patterns on a cardboard tabletop. Although he shifted to works on paper, he maintained his spontaneous approach. The Canadian art dealer Douglas Duncan was among the first to promote his art, leading to a 1943 exhibition at Toronto’s Picture Loan Society. Wilson returned to the U.K. in 1945 and became prominent in the London art world, achieving mainstream success as a designer of tableware patterns for the Royal Worcester Porcelain Company in the early 1960s and having his art selected for the 1970 UNICEF Christmas card. His work had also attracted the attention of the surrealists, and in 1947 he was included in the <em>Exposition Internationale du Surréalisme</em> organized by André Breton and Marcel Duchamp at the Galerie Maeght in Paris. Jean Dubuffet later acquired his art for his art brut collection. Despite the acclaim, he lived modestly into his final years, continuing to work from a simple studio in the Kilburn area of London. He died in 1972. Allison C. Meier, 2025 Text written as part of “Rethinking Biography,” an initiative supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS).ScottieWilsonhttps://collection.folkartmuseum.org/internal/media/dispatcher/3651/fullULAN lists birth year as 1888 and other sources note ambiguity in birth date but wikipedia mentions consulting his birth certificate. would be helpful to locate for file. Valerie's source for 1891 is Anthony Petullo who researched the artist for his publication: Anthony J. Petullo and Katherine M. Murrell, Scottie Wilson: Peddler Turned Painter (Milwaukee: Petullo Publishing LLC, 2004), 78 pages.Family Search PDF saved in artist folder with birth year recorded as 1891 https://www.nationalgalleries.org/art-and-artists/artists/scottie-wilsonhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottie_Wilson (1891–1972)LondonGlasgowTorontoLondonLondonGlasgowTorontoLondonLondonGlasgowTorontoLondonScottie WilsonLouis FreemanRobert WilsonLewis Freeman