David Winfield Scott Watercolor 1940

David Winfield Scott  Watercolor 1940 - Signed - 25 x 16 inches, framed.

David Winfield Scott was born July 10, 1916, in Fall River, Mass., and raised in Claremont. After graduating from high school, he took a summer painting class with Millard Sheets, a leading figure in the California Watercolor School of the 1930s and 1940s, and Sheets became a formative influence. Scott received his undergraduate degree in English, with honors, from Harvard in 1937, then studied at the Art Students’ League in New York.

He served in a photo intelligence unit of the Army Air Forces during World War II, taking photos in Europe and North Africa to be used in the invasion of southern France. He also developed an interest in European art history during the war.

Scott earned master of arts and master of fine arts degrees at what was then Claremont Graduate School.

He joined the art faculty of Scripps College in 1946, eventually becoming department chairman, and received his doctorate from UC Berkeley in 1960.

David W. Scott, an artist and art historian who served as founding director of the National Museum of American Art, played a key role in expanding the National Gallery of Art and shepherded the Corcoran Gallery of Art through a difficult time after a controversial exhibit.

Scott joined the Smithsonian Institution’s staff in 1963 as assistant director of what was then known as the National Collection of Fine Arts after teaching art history at Scripps College in Claremont. At the time, the National Collection was such a staid, conservative institution that he was warned he would lose his job if he didn’t take down abstract works from the walls of his own home -- works he had painted.