Tag Archives: White Stag

Patrick Scott — Golden Boy

Gold - Patrick ScottPatrick Scott passed away on Valen­tines Day 2014 which was the eve  of a major ret­ro­spec­tive on the artist’s life in Dublin at IMMA and at the  Cen­tre for Con­tem­po­rary Art, Car­low   ‘Patrick Scott Image Space Light’ begins on 15th Feb­ru­ary and will run till mid May. Mer­maid Film are proud to announce that my film ‘Patrick Scott — Gold­en Boy’ will screen on a loop at both venues. RTE will screen the film on Thurs­day March 6th on RTE at 10:55 pm

The mak­ing of ‘Patrick Scott — Gold­en Boy’.

In 2003, I was invit­ed by the pro­duc­ers Maria Doyle Kennedy and Andrea Pitt to direct a film on the Irish artist Patrick Scott. Patrick was born in Kilbrit­tain, Coun­ty Cork in 1921 and is con­sid­ered today as the God­fa­ther of mod­ern art in Ireland.

Patrick Scott - Sé Merry DoyleI had pre­vi­ous­ly filmed Patrick for an as yet unre­alised film that would tell the sto­ry of the his­to­ry of mod­ern art in Ire­land. In the inter­view Patrick recalled the time when he rep­re­sent­ed Ire­land at the Venice Bien­nale in 1960. Although very proud to rep­re­sent Ire­land, Patrick was treat­ed shod­di­ly by the Depart­ment of For­eign Affairs. No gov­ern­ment rep­re­sen­ta­tive showed up at his open­ing as was cus­tom­ary with all the oth­er nations. To make mat­ters worse he had to pay for his own cat­a­logue and press reviews.

Patrick Scott - YoungI thought that this inter­view would nev­er see the light of day so I was delight­ed when it was used in ‘Gold­en Boy’. Gold­en Boy traced Patrick­’s ear­ly child­hood in Cork, his jour­ney into archi­tec­ture along­side Michael Scott and his even­tu­al deci­sion to become a full time painter in the ear­ly 50’s. Patrick­’s first recog­ni­tion as a painter came when he had his first exhi­bi­tion with the White Stag Group in 1944.

The White Stag Group was com­posed of main­ly paci­fist refugee painters flee­ing Britain and France dur­ing WW2. Patrick honed his craft with the White Stag Group and had his first recog­ni­tion inter­na­tion­al­ly when he won the Guggen­heim award in 1958 and then went on to rep­re­sent Ire­land at the Venice Bien­nale in 1960.

Patrick Scott StudioToday Patrick is known most­ly for his series of Gold paint­ings which he embarked on in the 70’s and con­tin­ues in the same vein today. The film reveals the wide range of styles he under­went before he got the Gold bug!

 

 

Device - Patrick ScottHis Devise paint­ings were a protest against the nuclear devices that were being test­ed in the 60’s. His Bog paint­ings were inspired on his train jour­neys to John Hus­ton’s home in Gal­way. Hus­ton lat­er opened an exhi­bi­tion of Patrick­’s work in Dublin.

 

 

I began the film­mak­ing process by inter­view­ing Patrick over a peri­od of three days in his home and stu­dio on Bag­got Lane, Dublin. It was just me and Patrick and his cats. I jour­neyed with him to his fam­i­ly home in Kilbrit­tain, his school, Saint Colum­ba’s in Rath­farn­ham and his cot­tage in the Wick­low Hills. We filmed the poet Sea­mus Heaney when he vis­it­ed Pat’s stu­dio. Oth­er con­trib­u­tors include the pot­ter Stephen Pearce and the art crit­ic Bruce Arnold. But it was Patrick him­self who took cen­tre stage in our film and over sev­er­al months he revealed the thought process­es behind his work. On the per­son­al side he recalled his life long rela­tion­ship with his part­ner the actor Pat McClarnon and the depths of despair he under­went when Pat passed away. In the end it was Art and Zen Bud­dhism that kept Patrick on track and though now in his nineties his indomitable spir­it still shines and inspires.  ‘Gold­en Boy’ is one of the most enjoy­able expe­ri­ences I had had as a doc­u­men­tary film­mak­er. The film was screened on RTE and had many suc­cess­ful fes­ti­val screenings.

Pro­duced by Maria Doyle Kennedy & Andrea Pitt

Direct­ed by Sé Mer­ry Doyle

Music by Kier­an Kennedy

Patrick Scott - Studio 50's