William Scott

b. 1964 · San Francisco, California, USA

William Scott calls himself an architect, and his project is the biggest one going: rebuilding San Francisco as Praise Frisco, a wholesome city where everyone gets a second chance.

The life

Scott was born in San Francisco in 1964 and has worked at Creative Growth Art Center in Oakland since 1992. Self-taught, he paints from a deep well of personal history: the Baptist church he has attended since childhood, his family, and the Black actors, musicians and civil rights leaders who people his portrait series. His work has been shown at SFMOMA, the Hayward Gallery in London and the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, and Matthew Higgs of White Columns has called him one of the most important artists working today.

The work

Acrylic and ink on paper: tender portraits, architectural plans and civic proposals for Praise Frisco, his utopian remake of a gentrified San Francisco, and the Inner Limits spaceships designed to bring back the dead for peaceful renewal. His work is held by The Museum of Everything in London and has entered major museum programmes on both sides of the Atlantic.

Why we love them

Utopian planning as an act of love. Praise Frisco has no planning committee, and it is better for it.

Go deeper

• William Scott at the Outsider Art Fair
• SFMOMA
• Where to see outsider art, our full list of museums and collections.
• The glossary, if any of the terms here are new.

Kindred spirits

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