Born in Kilbrittan, County Cork, Patrick Scott studied architecture at UCD, and began his career working with the architect Michael Scott. A self-taught painter, to begin with he painted only in his spare time but in 1960 he decided to devote himself full-time to painting.
In the book ‘Three Painters’ (Three Candles Press Dublin 1949) he said that the sea, where he spent his childhood in County Cork, had first stirred him to paint, but other influences were Cézanne, whose work he saw in
London in the spring of 1939, and Matisse, whom he knew from reproductions.
Scott exhibited regularly with the White Stag group from 1941 and in the autumn of 1944 held his first one-man exhibition at the White Stag gallery. He also exhibited at the IELA, of which he became a committee member in 1950. During the 1940s he painted décor for the Gate Theatre, Dublin and also produced tapestries and carpets. He represented Ireland at the Venice Biennale in 1960. Scott was perhaps best known for his gold paintings, minimal pared down canvasses incorporating geometrical shapes in gold leaf, against a pale background.
The Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery held a major survey of his work in 2002, and his final significant show took place in the year of his death, across the two sites of the Irish Museum of Modern Art and VISUAL centre for Contemporary Art, Carlow.
Further information about Scott and the White Stag Group is available here.
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