Trevor Scott, led Dun Laoghaire School of Art
Hyfler/Rosner
<Irish Times>
Trevor Scott, who has died aged 58, spent his life immersed in art. He
played a major role in the foundation of the Dun Laoghaire School of Art and
was one of the most formidable figures in art education over the last 30
years, an inspiring figure to countless graduate artists.
Born in Cork, he studied at the Crawford College of Art before going on to
the National College of Art and Design in Dublin where he gained his
qualifications in the principles of teaching art.
While studying at the National College of Art in Kildare Street, Dublin he
became involved in the beginning of radical student action aimed at
reforming the college. During this period he did his teaching practice in
the Dun Laoghaire Technical School's Special Art Course. A nervous, shy man,
his impact was in indirect proportion to his shyness. His generosity and
availability opened the doors of critical student action to a new
generation. This commitment to an active liberal agenda stayed with him for
his whole life.
Following work and travels in America, he moved on to lead the development
of Dun Laoghaire School of Art. There he joined Eoin Butler and Peter Dowd
in teaching a one-year pre-college art course where night classes in
painting, wood carving, ceramics and metalwork flourished. From Room 12,
behind the church, a concept of a non-academic art education grew into what
is today a multi-disciplinary Institute of Art, Design and Technology.
From 1972 to 1980 he headed the art department at the then School of Art in
the old bakery, Cumberland Street, Dun Laoghaire. It was there that Scott as
vice-principle expanded the range of subjects to painting, design,
sculpture, animation, film, photography and ceramics in collaboration with
his first wife Hester Levinge Scott.
From 1980 to 1991 he was head of art and photography, and as the college
settled into its new status as a third level institution, he took early
retirement and the main lecture theatre was renamed the Trevor Scott Theatre
in his honour.
Within a year, Scott had begun to develop a programme of action to provide
art education to those whose lives are touched by disability.
Art Link was founded and developed. Creating new educational systems in the
real world was not easy. That it seems to have been so is a testament to his
quiet tenacity and skill in moving bureaucracies forward.
Again he moved on, went for further training as an addiction councillor with
Aiseiri in Wexford, qualified and practised. What we got in Trevor Scott was
a full life given in service to others, attempting to give help to people,
primarily as an educator. We will never know how many people he helped in
his different roles. His life always had that radical edge of creative
liberalism. He stayed as much as he could out of the limelight and his final
choice of career, with its codes of confidentiality, seems so appropriate to
his life.
Outside his work in education, Scott designed and painted quietly but rarely
exhibited outside group shows in Ireland, Britain, Europe and South America.
His work is held in a number of private collections.
In 1990 he worked on and contributed to The Great Book of Ireland. In 1991
he edited Second Sight, the first major collection of contemporary Irish
press photography on behalf of the Press Photographers Association of
Ireland (PPAI). His remarkable visual intelligence and the ability to make
creative lateral connections was the key to the success of the book, both
visually and as a piece of modern history.
From 1992 to 1997, he chaired the international judges panel for the annual
PPAI awards. As well as acting as guest lecturer at numerous conferences,
Scott chaired Dun Laoghaire Arts Week from 1992 to 1995 and initiated two
arts-related FAS programmes.
In 1999 he married Miriam Lambert and their home in Dalkey and Kilkenny
reflected their mutual love of art, and Trevor's abiding delight in the work
of friends and former students whose gifts were demonstrably treasured, the
walls a gallery of paintings, photographs and drawings, their garden a work
of art in itself. A member of the Institute of Designers in Ireland, he
continued to immerse himself in administration, becoming a member of UNIMA
International and together with Miriam, ran the International Puppet
Festival from 1991-2000.
By some special magic when he lived in a tiny cottage in Glasthule the
ancient keyhole in Trevor Scott's front door acted as a lens, and his
miniature hallway as a camera obscura. Thus life reflected itself
upside-down on his inside wall, a metaphor for a remarkable, quiet, selfless
man who spent his life working for the visual arts in Ireland, while
managing himself to remain almost invisible.
Trevor Scott is survived by his wife Miriam, his brother Eric and his sister
June.
Kathi
Brigid Nelson
> There's another Trevor for the list.
It does seem to be open season on Trevors.
However there may be hope for the future, the
Trevor across the street will be celebrating his
first birthday this month.
brigid
Wendy Chatley Green
wrote:
:
Make sure he's kept away from infant seats in hot cars.
--
Wendy Chatley Green
wcg...@cris.com