`Just for a very short time, I remember my father was asked: `Are you James Scott's father?' But it was only a very short time," laughed James Scott ruefully. James, a painter, Oscar-winning film-maker and son of William Scott, was speaking at the opening of the major retrospective of his father's work at the Irish Museum of Modern Art on Tuesday. He has quite enough work of his own to boast about - films such as Every Picture Tells A Story about his father, and TV work on programmes such as Inspector Morse - but has been painting full-time in LA for the past eight years.
His brother Robert Scott also attended the opening. He is an exhibition and retail designer in London and was accompanied by his partner Lisa Allen, his son Alex, who is an Internet designer, and his daughter Rosie, who is an illustrator. James also had his family with him including his daughter Zoe and his sons Leo and Mischa. William Scott's widow, Mary Lucas, sadly couldn't make it over from Somerset.
A number of old friends made it their business to be at the gallery on Tuesday night. Artist T.P. Flanagan and his wife Sheila Flanagan travelled from Belfast (part of a large Northern contingent which included Ted Hickey of the Northern Ireland Arts Council and Brian Kennedy of the Ulster Museum) as did Fiona and Robert Lee, Scott's cousins. David Anderson came all the way from Buffalo, New York; his mother Martha Jackson ran the gallery where Scott first met artists Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning. Michael Tooby, the curator of the Tate Gallery at St Ives, also made the trip; Scott was a frequent visitor to St Ives and Michael wrote a short essay in the catalogue as did critic Simon Morley.
Lochlann Quinn, deputy chairman of Glenn Dimplex and an IMMA board member, arrived with an unusual gift - a handful of restaurant menus. The Scott family had dined in the restaurant of his Merrion Hotel, and were charmed to see two of their father's paintings adorning the menus. Lochlann got word of this and brought several menus along to distribute to the family. It was interesting to see so many of the city's gallery owners or directors at the opening - a sure indicator of the respect that Scott's work commands. Raymond Keaveney, director of the National Gallery, Josephine Kelliher of the Rubicon, David Fitzgerald of the Kerlin, Suzanne MacDougald of the Solomon, Jerome O Drisceoil of Green on Red and Kevin Kavanagh of the Jo Rain were there to admire the work.
