Born to Lithuanian immigrant parents in Glasgow, Scottie Wilson did not attend school. He became a newspaper seller at age 10, enlisted in the army in 1906, and served in India and South Africa. Returning to the UK, he worked at fairs and markets in London. Sent as a soldier to Ireland in the late 1920s, he deserted and fled to Canada, becoming a second-hand dealer in Toronto. At 40, he began to draw, spending hours with pen or pencil in his back room while listening to works by Felix Mendelssohn. His preferred subjects were characters with large noses, fish, birds, trees, and architecture.
Returning to London after World War II, Wilson gave away or sold his drawings cheaply at fairs or to passersby and organized small exhibitions in cinemas or abandoned caravans. In the later period of his work, he staged the battle between Good and Evil in a series of symbolic totems he called “Greedies” and “Evils.”
WILSON scottie (louis FREEMAN, known as)
