Wick artist's work is immortalised in book

A BOOK featuring the work of Wick artist Ian Charles Scott is about to be published in America.

The Likeness of Strangers has been compiled by James Pustorino who is the director of the Victory Hall Art Centre in New Jersey.

It comprises around 45 portraits which Scott painted over the years, including some well-known Caithness faces.

There are three paintings of the late Rev R.R. Sinclair, of Wick, including one of him against a backdrop of Bridge Street which is on the cover of the book.

There are also such well-known characters as George Robertson, Willie Sinclair, of the harbour office, Ray Yellop, of the Cliff Bakery, as well as Ian’s father. In addition, there are also several paintings and drawings of the late Orkney writer, George Mackay Brown, along with a selection of portraits of people Scott has met in New York where he has lived for the past 15 years.

Pustorino has been working on the book for almost a year and has written a text as well. He is keen to do a follow-up featuring scenes and landscapes painted by Scott whose work is critically acclaimed. "I am interested in human beings and like to understand them and my way of understanding them is to paint them," he said in an interview with the John O’Groat Journal while back in Wick on holiday.

The portraits are striking and intriguing and capture not only a likeness of the person but seem to penetrate beneath the surface and reveal something of the inner being.

The Likeness of Strangers, which was funded by lotteries and the New Jersey State Council, will be available in book shops in New York. Scott hopes 50 copies will be sent to Wick before he heads back to the USA at the end of the month so he can have a launch here. Some will also go to Orkney and Glasgow.

Scott’s work can also be seen in a new BBC publication on paintings in Dundee museums which has a foreword by the Duchess of Cornwall.

Books about public works in Edinburgh and Glasgow have already been published and the latest one features Dundee where Scott studied art.

The publication features some prominent Scottish names such as John Bellany, Joan Eardley, John Duncan Fergusson and Samuel Peploe as well as Robert Colquhoun and Macintosh Patrick.

A number of Scott’s paintings are in the book, including some full-page copies of his work.

Meanwhile, the artist has just completed three paintings – two watercolours and one oil – which feature local scenes.

Wick Railway Station has a man standing at the station beside the shadow of a train with the now demolished Claymore Creamery in the background. Another is called Wick Harbour and has the port and the sea as a backdrop. The foreground has a man in an old-fashioned diving suit with a tattoo on his forehead and one on his arm which is of the former Pavilion Cinema in Wick.

The third painting is Old Cliffs of Wick and is an imaginary scene with a woman knitting squids from her own hair observed by three artists. It was bought by an American commodities trader. All three were painted in New York.

Scott is a nationally and internationally recognised artist whose works can be found in various galleries in Scotland as well as in Europe, America and Japan.

In New York he works as a lecturer at the Hostos Community College which is part of the City University of New York.

Students from the college were in Scotland recently to put on a play in Edinburgh during the Festival. It was called Rough Magic and was based on The Tempest by William Shakespeare. Scott helped paint the props and the scenery.

Do you want to respond to this article? If so, click here to submit your thoughts and they may be published in print.