Page 19 - Patrick Scott Scrapbooks

The
Subject: PATRICK SCOTT/Reporter: MAGNUS LINKLATER/Picture: BRIAN
What IS success?
SCOTT TALKING
It is meaningless unless I
feel I have done
something worth while. Yo'Q._ don't always succeed,
but at least the stimulus is there
HIS house in Dublin is a converted stable with a Georgian archway in the garden and a spiral staircase in the sitting-room - a design for unconventional living.
At 44, Patrick Scott is a" respected" painter: critics call his work "important"; an Irish gallery has refused to pay £100 for one of his pictures because, it was said, the ratepayers wouldn't understand it; a Guggenheim Award and a purchase by New York's Museum of Modern Art have made him international.
He is as coma:iletely Irish as Frank O'Connor, as Walter
Macken, as Frank McManus-he was bon1 and brought up in
back to the same theine. I P3Ant with anything that comes w hand, a ribbon, a piece of cloth, or a brush. If I haven't g-ot the proper thing, I use the first
Object t.hat comes to hand."
}le pointed to a canvas of mottle(j. colours set in a re.ct.- angle on a . grey background
hanging on the wall.
"That's no good. I don't know WhY I keep it there. I tihink tl1ere's probably a damp patch on the wall beneath. But I can see an immediate link between that one and the gold paintings. A few other people can, but not
Co. Cork. And he is also completely un-Irish-no accent, no man.y. It isn't really important
to see links, just interesting,"
At the top of the spiral stair-
case hs his studio, large and Ing. While its writing and its PURPOSE
untidy, with a magnificent music are famous, there has He to another
particular Irish axe to grind, a man who feels himself
bound to Eurqpe because of h:is .art r.ather than ;>trictly tied
down to Ireland. . HIS
French stove whicn doesn't work. Stacked at the back are some of the canvases which are being sent off for a one-man exhlbi·
been nothing to command uni- versal acclaim since the Book of Kells.
sprawled shape, this time on paper.
" A Danish firm asked me to
"That me!l-ns," says Scott, do a picture representing
" that you a.re working without toxaemia. in pregnancy. That's a tradition behmd you and 1t."
t1on.
They lj.re plain grey canvases therefore you are creatlr:g one Thus Patrick Scott. Occupa-
with gold paint on them; one of yout own. I worked in a firm tion: Paints. Recreation: Flying has a single gold stripe dovm of a.rCihitects as a designer. This kites in the windy Wicklow the middle, one has a gold may have had its influence on Hills and-painting. Purpose in circle. They are called " Qold me. I don't honestly know. But life: To paint a better picture Dublin 1t.sclf, where I have
Painting No. l," "Gold Painting
No. 2," etc. worked for most of my life is a spiral staircase and a bird's
Downstairs there ls an ooon not really a place that has a eye view o! Ireland. comp:etely
brick fire, a Spanish. wedding st,rong impact. I like working chest, a Siamere decoration here because I ha.ve got used to
detached yet completely involved.
made out of painted leaves dangling from the ceiling.
He him.self ls goo<l-looking in a sort of youthful Kenneth More way. He wears jeans which are too :::hort for him <"the only one.s left which haven't got a broken zip"\. a blue Jersey and slippers. He has black curly hair brushed back on either .si<!e and he talks with a slight stutter
?
•
it. that's ali. In that sense I am not tremendously Irish."
He got UJJ to answeT the telephone <he crosses the room sometl1ing like a panther In search of his next meal) and I sat down gingerly in a chair with leather straps for arm.· rests. It st.ruck me that Patrick Scott is one of the best things that has happened to Ireland.
Because he ls u11rlrish' he is accepted as a painter in his own right without any of bhe diffi- culties either of having io prove hls patriotism in his pictu'l'es ot de.fend It. He is an artist. take
Patric1( Scott exhibition still attracting
Ask any artist to his . it or leave It.
work and he will start mumblini;c about sellf-expression and Linear thought - transference. Ask Par.rick Scott and he will smile sweetly a.ru:i say: "I can't." which is an excellent start. because it immediately puts you on the same footing.
"A few critics have said things about my paintings which I have agreed with. but not many. One of them called It ·poor
But because he Is Irish and his pictlliles are on exhibition throughout the world he Is tremendous credlt and reputation to Ireland.
THE PEOPLE WHO BUY
"1 can only about it from my individual point of view," he said. "Success Is meaningless unless I feel that I have done something worthwlh.Lle. I f you do something you are pleased with you have then got somethi11g to live up to and you will auto- matically try t-0 do a better painting next time. You don·t always succeed, but at least tl1e
Patrick Scott is not to be confused with William Scott. Patrick is the artist they call "the architect" - a typical Irishism as he no longer practices.
In a Dublin second-hand bookshop the other week I picked up a 1944 publication fvom the Sign of the Three Candles, "Three Painters- Basil Rakoczi, Kenneth Hall, Patrick Scott."
SEEKING HAPPINESS
In an introduction by Her- brand Ingouville - Williams, who died before the book was published, Patrick Scott is quoted as saying: "I have no aim in my own painting, other than my own happiness. I am not seeking to express any inner truths."
He is stil happy at his work. 'The current exhibition at the
the buyers
jokes in good frames ' which I
ratner liked. He was right
about the ftames. Actually one
of the best appreciations came
from a couple of people who
were carrying my pictures into
an art gallery-they saw what I
was trying to get at much
better than I. did myself. I
suppose they were looking at
them with a completely unpre- stimulus is there.
New Gallery, Grosvenor Road, Belfast, may have a lukewarm response from some, but the last time I was there four of the ten paintings in gold leaf and tempera had been sold.
GOOD
NEWS
"Good," said Patrick Scott when he heard the total' sales amou.nted to 880 guineas. "It surprises me a little. Some of those bought are coming back to Dublin!"
Geometrical forms. Gold- painting I, for example, con- sists of a circle (in which there are gold squares) at the top of the canvas. which is un- painted on either side. At the bottom of the picture is a rect- angle in lighter beige.
Goldleaf is included in all the paintings. • Just by chance Scott came across some goldleaf about 12 months ago. It had been used a score of years before for something e 1s e. So the
Dubliner decided to make pictures.
Patrick Scott is represented in the Museum of Modern Art, New Y ork. Bog Reflection and Yellow Device are in the Ulster Museum.
Annually we made our way to Stranmillis wondering about Patrick Scott's contri· bution for the Irish Exhibition of Living Art. That was in the "old days."
Painting 15562 and Paint- . ing 24162 might have had Bel- worried in 1962. But now evcryo1'e is happy. The sun always shines - in gold·
judiced eye.
"I I?aint mainly because I
enjoy it, It gives me an oppor- tunity to recharge my batteries and start living a.gain and because the longer I go on not painting the more difficult it is to start again."
Scott 1s not ol'lly out on a limb because he lives in a house with a spiral staircase. Irela:i:1d has no great tradition of paint--
··I find that I sell a number of pictures to the same people- in Ireland and in America. These people like my pictures, come back for more, and have probably seen and understood the progression ·in style.
"Y ou see, basically all my pictures are about the same thing, but said in a different way each time. My painting is instinctive and Instinctively I go
next time. Assets: A house with
;aw
M 31 ·--
leaf.
still
known as "the architect"
THEO.
Patrick Scott, the artist