Over the course of her long career, artist Marian Dale Scott evolved her style from realism to abstraction as she worked to develop her own personal response to the changes she witnessed in the art world. A Montrealer by birth and a professional artist by training, Scott was also, by her own admission, an autodidact. She was constantly visiting exhibitions and reading about art so that she could incorporate new ideas into her own work. The four artworks on display in the lobby of Old Chancellor Day Hall, together with the two on the fourth floor of New Chancellor Day Hall, illustrate how Scott mastered a myriad of techniques, from traditional painting with a brush, to stenciling, to applying paint with her hands. All but one of these artworks date from after 1960.
The Faculty of Law is proud to celebrate Scott’s work as her husband, the poet and civil liberties activist F.R. Scott (1899-1985), was a Professor and Dean of Law at McGill. Together, the Scotts hosted gatherings for many of the most prominent Canadians in art, literature, politics, and science. The six artworks by Scott on display in the Faculty were gifted to McGill’s Visual Arts Collection from Professor Margaret Somerville and from Julian Armstrong O’Brien, whose husband, son, father-in-law, brother-in-law, sister-in-law, and niece, all graduated from McGill with degrees in Law.
