Artist Patrick Scott dies aged 93 as exhibition opens

Cork-born Patrick Scott, who died yesterday aged 93, enjoyed a long and illustrious career as one of Ireland’s best-loved visual artists.

Scott’s death comes just as the Irish Museum of Modern Art in Dublin and VISUAL in Carlow open a retrospective of his work.

The youngest of four children, Scott was born on a farm in Kilbrittain, West Cork, in 1921. He boarded at St Columba’s in Dublin, where he first took an interest in art.

He studied architecture at UCD and worked for many years under Michael Scott at Scott Tallon Walker.

Scott was responsible for designing the mosaics at the Busáras terminal in Dublin and the black and orange livery on CIÉ’s trains.

He had his first solo exhibition in 1944, and showed work each year thereafter at the Irish Exhibition of Living Art in Dublin.

He represented Ireland at the Venice Biennale in 1960, an occasion he later remembered as a mixed blessing, as he had no option but to pay his own way there and back.

Soon after, he won a major art prize in New York. He bought a house in Baggot Lane in Dublin with the proceeds, and devoted himself full-time to art.

In keeping with his family’s wishes, the launch of Patrick Scott: Image Space Light will proceed at IMMA at 3.30pm today.