John Scott (May 11, 1950 – February 17, 2022) was a Canadian multimedia painter, sculptor, and installation artist.

Early life

Born in 1950 in

Windsor, Ontario Windsor is a city in southwestern Ontario, Canada, on the south bank of the Detroit River directly across from Detroit, Michigan, United States. Geographically located within but administratively independent of Essex County, it is the southe ...

, Scott began working in a factory on assembly lines at 15 to support his family, later becoming sensitized to the local labour movement and larger political issues. One writer who knew him at the time says he was a street artist. Scott followed his brother to Toronto, and after some time spent at

Rochdale College Rochdale College was an experiment in student-run alternative education and co-operative living in Toronto, Canada from 1968 to 1975. It provided space for 840 residents in a co-operative living space. It was also an informal, noncredited free ...

, University of Toronto and elsewhere, eventually landed at the Ontario College of Art in 1972, at the tail end of a tumultuous time when the school, as Scott said, was changing to a more conceptual, rather than a didactic, approach. “It was great. It was a complete mess,” Scott recalled. Scott never finished his studies, but transitioned into running the school’s gallery. From there, Scott said, he "sort of gradually slipped in" to teaching. He was a professor in the Faculty of Art, primarily in the Drawing and Painting program. In 2019, he retired after 38 years.

Career

Scott`s graphic drawings in black paint and charcoal with their deliberately childlike motifs, hand and boot marks and misspellings are his signature, along with his ''Trans-Am Apocalypse No. 2'' (1993), a black, modified

Pontiac Trans Am The Pontiac Firebird is an American automobile that was built and produced by Pontiac from the 1967 to 2002 model years. Designed as a pony car to compete with the Ford Mustang, it was introduced on February 23, 1967, five months after GM's Che ...

car that has text scratched into its surface from the Bible's

Book of Revelation The Book of Revelation is the final book of the New Testament (and consequently the final book of the Christian Bible). Its title is derived from the first word of the Koine Greek text: , meaning "unveiling" or "revelation". The Book of ...

of St. John the Evangelist (

National Gallery of Canada The National Gallery of Canada (french: Musée des beaux-arts du Canada), located in the capital city of Ottawa, Ontario, is Canada's national art museum. The museum's building takes up , with of space used for exhibiting art. It is one of the ...

). (There is also a version in the

Art Gallery of Ontario The Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO; french: Musée des beaux-arts de l'Ontario) is an art museum in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The museum is located in the Grange Park neighbourhood of downtown Toronto, on Dundas Street West between McCaul and Bev ...

collection). Among his themes are power, class, industrialization, and fear. In 1982, he said that he believed all art has the potential for social and political change. Few artists in Canada have protested war in their art as single-mindedly as Scott did. In the large, bleak drawing ''Second Strike'', he made clear his objections to American cruise missile testing in Canada. His work first came to critical attention in 1976 in a group show at Sable-Castelli Gallery in Toronto. His first solo show was at Carmen Lamanna Gallery in Toronto in 1981. From the time of his early work, he has used images of skull-like bunny-man figures and technology in his drawings. Around 2005, he began using a figure he called ''Dark Commander'', a sad jokey Napoleon-like cartoon to represent evil. The works he created could be unique. For instance, for a Holocaust memorial work in 1989, he had a seven-digit number, similar to victims of

Nazi concentration camps From 1933 to 1945, Nazi Germany operated more than a thousand concentration camps, (officially) or (more commonly). The Nazi concentration camps are distinguished from other types of Nazi camps such as forced-labor camps, as well as con ...

, and a rose tattooed on his inner thigh. He then had this section of skin surgically removed. The drying skin was then displayed in a raised glass case at the entrance to the exhibition. He called this work ''Selbst''. Scott's work has been the subject of numerous solo exhibitions and included in many group shows, both in Canada and abroad, including a 12-year retrospective titled ''John Scott: Edge City'', curated by Joan Murray for the

Robert McLaughlin Gallery The Robert McLaughlin Gallery is a public art gallery in Oshawa, Ontario, Canada. It is the largest public art gallery in the Regional Municipality of Durham, of which Oshawa is a part. The gallery houses a significant collection of Canadian conte ...

in Oshawa in 1994, and in 1997, ''John Scott: Engines of Anxiety'', a two-venue solo exhibition curated by David Liss at the Gallery of the Saidye Bronfman Centre for the Arts and the

Montreal Museum of Fine Arts The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA; french: Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal, MBAM) is an art museum in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is the largest art museum in Canada by gallery space. The museum is located on the historic Golden Square ...

. These shows culminated in ''Dark Commander: The Art of John Scott'', a 40-year retrospective organized by associate director Daniel Strong for The Falconer Gallery at

Grinnell College Grinnell College is a private liberal arts college in Grinnell, Iowa, United States. It was founded in 1846 when a group of New England Congregationalists established the Trustees of Iowa College. Grinnell has the fifth highest endowment-to-stu ...

Iowa Iowa () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States, bordered by the Mississippi River to the east and the Missouri River and Big Sioux River to the west. It is bordered by six states: Wisconsin to the northeast, Illinois to th ...

in 2014 with a major, 50-page book catalogue. This two-part exhibition travelled to

McMaster Museum of Art The McMaster Museum of Art (MMA) is a non-profit public art gallery at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. The museum is located in the centre of the campus, attached to Mills Memorial Library and close to the McMaster University Student Cen ...

(the first half) and the Art Gallery of Hamilton (the second half) in 2015-2016. His work is in the collections of the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...

, New York, the

, Ottawa, and many other institutions. In 2002, he co-authored ''Shiva`s Really Scary Gifts'' of his cocktail napkin drawings, with Ann MacDonald of the

Doris McCarthy Doris McCarthy, LL. D. (July 7, 1910 – November 25, 2010) was a Canadian artist known for her abstracted landscapes. Life and career Born in Calgary, Alberta, McCarthy attended the Ontario College of Art from 1926 to 1930, where she was award ...

Gallery, Toronto. In 2000, Scott was awarded the inaugural Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts. He is represented by Nicholas Metivier Gallery. Scott died in Toronto, Ontario, on February 17, 2022, at the age of 71.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Scott, John 1950 births 2022 deaths Artists from Windsor, Ontario Canadian male painters Canadian male sculptors Canadian installation artists OCAD University faculty Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts winners Canadian collage artists