Study of George Mackay Brown

Artist Ian Charles Scott (Wick, Scotland, born 1957)

Sitter George MacKay Brown (Stromness, Orkney, Scotland, 1921 - 1996)

Date1985

Mediumgesso pencil watercolour on paper

ClassificationsPaintings And Drawings

DimensionsOverall: Height: 45.5 cm, Width: 30.7 cm

AcquisitionPurchased in 1992 with assistance from the National Fund for Acquisitions.

LocationView by Appointment - Aberdeen Treasure Hub

Object numberABDAG010581

Keywords

Portrait

About MeThis is one of a series of portraits of George Mackay Brown by the artist. Ian Charles Scott, himself a Northerner, originally from Wick, has been a devoted admirer of Mackay Brown's poems since his student days at Dundee Art School. On graduating the artist gathered the confidence to call his hero and request a sitting. He describes their first telephone conversation as follows;

"This was not the type of man who idled away hours on the phone, so I got a straightforward reply 'Why all right, but I can't see what you would make out of my face, it's no Mona Lisa; contact me when you're in Stromness.'"

What Scott had planned as a one day trip turned into 5 days of creative activity fuelled by tea with a nip of Highland Park provided by the poet, a splash of which escaped onto this study whilst Scott was working on it creating an aged effect.

The character of Mackay Brown is etched in a landscape of linear furrows, his hair was as the artist described it 'as if it were in contact with elemental forces beyond my ken…..a flake grey cumulus cloud.' He later informed the artist he had washed it especially for the occasion! He wears a characteristic fisherman's jumper clearly a favourite as it appears not only in Scott's many studies of the writer but also in several other portraits including Erik Hoffmann's, Nightfall - Portrait of George Mackay Brown.
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Scott, born in Wick, now has a studio and teaches in the Bronx, having earlier taught art in the maximum-security HMP Shotts.