Celebrating Scot Blyth
Artists, colleagues and collaborators have shared their memories of Scot Blyth with us.
Scot was Senior Production Manager at Modern Art Oxford and had been part of the team for 13 years, before he sadly passed away on Sunday 6 July 2025.
Many of us here at the gallery had the privilege of working with him for more than a decade and came to appreciate the tremendous skill, experience and knowledge he brought to our work with artists. Always commended for his resourcefulness and responsiveness to realising the visions of artists, and often underpinned by his characteristically straight-forward and pragmatic approach and dry sense of humour.
He leaves a huge hole in our team and will be enormously missed by us all. Read written memories of Scot below alongside a recording featuring Aaron Head, Joe Wilson, Sebastian Thomas, and Andy Owen who share their favourite memories from their time working with Scot.
Stephanie Straine, former Curator of Exhibitions and Projects at Modern Art Oxford (2016-19)
I spent three and a half years at Modern Art Oxford developing exhibitions in close collaboration with Scot and the rest of our amazing Programme team. Our most creative planning, problem solving and team debates always took place gathered around the table in the workshop. This was Scot’s domain: a place that served as a continuous reminder of the practical and often messy hard work that goes into exhibition making, with its extensive equipment, neatly organised tools, joinery works-in-progress, and numerous other material traces of install prep and artwork maintenance.
In my Oxford memories, Scot and the workshop are inextricably linked, one and the same. He spent incredibly long hours in that windowless space off the yard. His drive and commitment to excellence made it something so much more than the sum of its parts. It was always the first place I would take artists on a site visit to MAO: a place to orient them, and most of all to reassure them that they were in very safe hands with our Production Manager. He treated everyone with the same respect, whether they were a world-renowned artist or someone much earlier in their career journey. He had an immense appreciation for artists and the work that they do, which underpinned his occasionally exasperating perfectionism. He dedicated his career to ensuring that their work was best served by his installation and build proposals and solutions, his ongoing care and maintenance for artworks once installed, and his incredibly rigorous packing standards, which meant that artworks frequently left MAO in a much better state than they arrived!
My strongest memories of Scot are from the installation period of Cinthia Marcelle’s The Family in Disorder (2018). This was a deeply experimental exhibition, which involved handing over complete control of the Upper Gallery and its contents to our art handling team, who were invited to disrupt, disassemble and reconfigure the materials within it. For the entire final week, I was banned from entering this gallery space, which was an incredibly healthy challenge to the role of curator! I cannot overstate Scot’s importance to the successful realisation of Cinthia’s vision for this entirely new, large-scale and concept-driven artwork that has since been re-staged at major museums in Barcelona and Sao Paulo. He approached the proposal with genuine relish, with a deep appreciation for its many links to the history of installation art, resistance and protest art, and institutional critique. I know that Scot was utterly delighted to be asked to find a safe (and legal) way to disable the gallery’s fire alarms for the week’s grand finale of setting off smoke bombs in the Upper Gallery. He was as coolly subversive and refined as this culminating act of defiance. Working with Scot made me a much better curator. I will forever be grateful to him.
Emma Titcombe, Visitor Services Manager at Modern Art Oxford
We used to call them the orange army 🙂 The show was on the 28th September 2019, and this photo was taken at the beginning of this week, seven years ago, so it would be the Kiki Smith install.
Lilli Tranborg, Artist
It feels so special that Scot wanted to be part of the Second Skin project by fixing the metal ‘ribs’ in April. I worked really closely with Scot on making the metal structure for Continuing Bodies in 2018, calculating the sizes of the arches and helping with bending the metal. Good memories! 🙂
Deb Pill, Artist and Volunteer Coordinator at Modern Art Oxford
One of my favourite memories of Scot was when we did the exhibition Flow when I was a volunteer. It was the first collaborative exhibition co-curated by volunteers, of which Scot oversaw the installation. Unfortunately due to Covid it became an online exhibition, but it had a review by Laura Cummings in the Guardian (September 2020). The best review, however, came from Scot when he announced it was a good exhibition and a shame that it was only online. To have his approval was high praise.
Kay Sentance, Former Duty Manager at Modern Art Oxford
I have a strong memory of Scot reminding the Crew and the duty managers of the importance of monitoring the temperature and humidity in the galleries. Scot could get quite upset if the humidity went off target. Although, on the one hand this is just about water in the air; it is also about keeping the balance just right. It is a random memory to have of someone but it is also a testament of Scot’s eye for detail too.
Cinthia Marcelle, Artist
He was a wonderful person and professional. Here are some photos of the process of The Family in Disorder at MAO in 2018. There is a great portrait of Scot and I that expresses how much I admire him.
Aaron Head, Freelance Art Technician
Scot was a huge character and good person. I will miss working with him a lot. He was kind as well as tough! He always had a good word for me, alongside the usual pointers, and I’ll never forget the thoughtful reference he wrote for my masters application . It was always a great night in the pub when Scot was on form and telling stories about his days at Momart…
Emmett Casley, Freelance Art Technician
I’m glad that I had the chance to work with him over the last few years. He was a good man.
Dave Lisser, Freelance Art Technician
I always enjoyed working with Scot and have fond memories of him – he’s one of a kind and will be sorely missed.
Thom Rees, Freelance Art Technician
There will be a big grumpy sized hole at Modern Art Oxford. I will miss him making me paint all the brick walls in the gallery with a tiny 1 inch paintbrush.
Willow Senior, Freelance Art Technician
What a pleasure it was to not only work with him but learn from him these past few years.
Luca and Katrina Dayanc, Artists
Dear Scot,
To a legend of craft and precision, you lent a hand whatever the mission.
Somehow you knew, just exactly what to do, to help realise the vision of artists old and new. What a privilege it is to have worked with you.
A quiet constant confidence and wit, you brought. A presence and character that cannot be taught.
Thank you Scot for the time you gave, and countless creative panics you did so brave.
A privilege to have worked with such a man, and met you on our artistic journey.
Rest Peacefully Scot.
Andy Owen, Production Manager at Modern Art Oxford
My Reminiscence of Scot
I worked closely with Scot for 9 years. I came to know him as a tough task master with an infuriatingly meticulous eye for detail, he expected 110% from everyone in his team. He could be difficult at times but beneath the gruff exterior he was kind and generous and had a strong sense of fair play. He earned the respect of everyone who he worked with – techs, curators and artists alike. I also knew him as a supportive mentor and a loyal friend with a wry sense of humour always seeking to push the boundaries.
Scot and I have very different personalities and I clearly remember the moment when our working relationship was defined. We were planning the installation of a Richard Long piece as part of Kaleidoscope, MAO’s year long 50th anniversary exhibition. The intention was to recreate “Walking a Labyrinth” an interactive floor drawing in mud that was presented in MAO’s Upper Gallery decades before. All we had to go on was a rough sketch and some grainy photos from the MAO archives. Many details were unclear and we disagreed about the nature of a few specific parts of the drawing – Scot thought the labyrinth was enclosed all round but I was certain there had to be openings – how else would you get in to walk the labyrinth? Back then we barely knew one another, and Scot could be pretty fearsome, but I was convinced that I understood the intention of the artwork and so I argued my point with him. Scot was all about the details and it was really important to him that everything was done just right. So he called Richard Long to settle the argument. The artist confirmed that the ambiguous parts of the plan were indeed entrances/exits and should be open. I was promptly tasked with sourcing the mud (china clay), planning and installing the piece. When it was finished Scot came to me and said “Nice one Andy, you called that right from the start.”
That was high praise coming from Scot. Going forward Scot and I frequently disagreed about things, (needless to say, Scot was nearly always right… “Andy.. why are you doing it like that?”) but that’s why we made a good team – we both looked at the same problem from completely different points of view. Scot had a wealth of knowledge and decades more experience than me but he was open to suggestions and listened to my ideas and opinions. This really helped me to grow within my role and to build my skills and confidence, he gave me projects to manage and own, but was always there to offer support and advice. As a team we worked on solutions to all the bizarre head scratching technical conundrums that fabricating and installing work for artists entails. Scot worked tirelessly to make every exhibition the best it could be and now I frequently think to myself, “what would Scot do?” I feel privileged to have worked so closely with Scot and I am immensely proud of what we have all achieved under his leadership.
Jess Robertson, Curator, Exhibitions & Live Programmes at Modern Art Oxford
In 2021 Modern Art Oxford held an exhibition of paintings by Anish Kapoor. Many of the works were characteristically large-scale and it was Scot’s job to figure out how we would be able to get them into the gallery spaces. Drawing on his extensive experience as Director of the fine art shipping and logistics company Momart in the 1990s and previous experience installing a huge Kapoor sculpture in Venice, Scot was ready for the challenge. He spent many months making calculations and drawings to determine which works from the artist’s studio would be able to safely fit through the gallery’s narrow access points. During installation, Pembroke Street had to be closed for three days while the enormous crates holding the artworks were craned in through one of the upper gallery windows.
In May 2022, Modern Art Oxford presented the first UK institutional exhibition of work by Ruth Asawa. The exhibition was postponed twice due to the Covid-19 Pandemic and involved complex logistics and a careful installation plan for Asawa’s signature delicate looped wire sculptures. Working closely with Andy Owen and colleagues in the exhibitions team, Scot oversaw the safe unpacking and installation of these intricate works, devising ingenious hanging methods for the sculptures in MAO’s high ceilinged upper gallery space and designing unique curved kick plinths for the display. The artworks were installed with museum couriers and lenders over zoom as they were unable to travel for the exhibition adding another layer of complexity to the installation.
Valerie Asiimwe Amani, Artist
In 2023 Valerie Asiimwe Amani was commissioned to create a new installation and performance work for the exhibition Boundary Encounters. Scot worked closely with Valerie to design and fabricate specific aspects of the installation including a bench which was illuminated from the inside. Alongside the bench, Scot helped Valerie to make a special, large-scale needle for the live performance. Valerie has contributed this new work, The Spirit is the Medium in Scot’s memory, the stitched elements are a reminder of the needle that he carefully crafted.
Discover more images of Scot in the gallery below.
