Richard T. Scott is an American painter working in the classical tradition, whose work seeks to restore a sense of shared meaning, beauty, and human dignity through the language of the figure. Trained in both the American and European traditions, his practice is shaped by an early mentorship with painter and printmaker Joseph Norman; whose work confronts the weight of American history; and by subsequent study at the New York Academy of Art, two years painting for Jeff Koons, and a three year apprenticeship with Odd Nerdrum in Paris. Known for his portraiture, interiors, and history paintings, Scott draws on both Humanist and Buddhist philosophy to explore enduring questions of identity, memory, and moral experience. His paintings engage moments from American history alongside timeless archetypes, using the figure to give presence and permanence to individuals and events that continue to shape cultural consciousness. Critic Donald Kuspit has described him as a “New Old Master.”

His portraits, history paintings, and interiors have been exhibited at Le Grand Palais in Paris, Palazzo Cini in Venice, and the Museu Europeu d'Art Modern in Barcelona, and are held in permanent collections on three continents including the New Britain Museum of American Art, the Georgia Museum of Art, the European Museum of Contemporary Art in Barcelona, The Museum of Contemporary Art Sicily, Adoro Museum, and the collections of President Bill Clinton, Philip Anschutz, and Robert C. Kennedy.

Scott has designed coins and congressional medals for the United States Mint, including the 2016 Fort Moultrie quarter, and was selected for the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Copyist Program in 2006. He holds the distinction of Associate Living Master from the Art Renewal Center, and his work has been featured on NPR, PRI,Fine Art Connoisseur, American Art Collector, among other international publications.

He teaches at the Savannah College of Art and Design, and has given lectures and workshops at the Tyler School of Art, The Florence Academy of Art, The University of Georgia, The Lyme Academy, Laguna College of Art and Design, among others. Scott is the creator and host of Outside the Lines with Richard T Scott, a documentary series exploring the lives and philosophies of visionary artists.  

 

Richard's CV

“Richard T. Scott [is] what I have called the New Old Masters; that is, they use Old Master styles to mediate modern reality and to give emotional and cognitive depth to events that the mass media would treat superficially (one more momentarily hot news story, here today, gone tomorrow)".

 - Donald Kuspit, Art Critic.
 

“Whether it is in his portraits, his compositions, or either still in his interiors, Richard T. Scott always tries to produce, on his spectators, a certain effect of strangeness, or at least, something like a feeling of longing. That's why, maybe, his compositions are populated for the greater part with mirrors in which appear, not simply beings just like those who face us - but of real spectres having the function to destabilize our glance while giving the fourth dimension for us to see” - by Frédéric Charles Baitinger, Critic, Artension