Ian Charles Scott: The Shape of the Being: Portrait Project

For Ian Charles Scott, New York City seems only a larger version of the community he knew in his hometown of Wick- a bigger village.The works in this book cover the whole of Scottish artist’s career so far and divide into distinct groupings. There are the recent images of familiar faces from both cities: the Catch-22 man Scott stopped coming out of a James Ensor exhibition in New York, and the harbormaster, old sailor, and postmaster of Wick. The current, ink pictures of boxers and other Bronx and Brooklyn neighbors are remarkable for their piercing gaze and clarity of color. Sections on Scott’s studies of a few notable men follow, concluding with several very large, powerful works on wood panel that helped start-off his career, and all of which are in the collections of various Scottish museums.