Patrick Scott studied architecture at University College Dublin and went on to practice as an architect in the office of Michael Scott from 1945 to 1960, when he began to paint full time. He is also well known for his tapestries, having collaborated with the V´soske Joyce carpet company in Co Galway, developing new tapestry techniques. He has received numerous tapestry commissions for public buildings, including the Bank of Ireland headquarters on Baggot Street, Dublin; PJ Carroll´s cigarette factory, Dundalk; and the European Parliament, Strasbourg.

Under the Pier reflects Scott´s interest in architecture, the open-ended linear forms playfully interacting to create a complex geometric abstraction. His concerns as an artist have been with purely visual and pictorial values. He exhibited at the Guggenheim International Exhibition in New York in 1958, winning the Guggenheim International award, and in 1960 he represented Ireland at the 30th Venice Biennale. His work can be found in many public and private collections, including the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin City Gallery – the Hugh Lane, Ulster Museum, and the Museum of Modern Art, New York. He has had two major retrospective exhibitions – in 1981 at the Douglas Hyde Gallery, Dublin; Ulster Museum, Belfast; and the Crawford Gallery, Cork, and in 2002 at the Hugh Lane Gallery, Dublin, and the Crawford Gallery, Cork. He was elected a member of Aosdána in 1981, and was made a Saoi in 2007, an honour bestowed upon only five living artists at any one time. He lives and works in Dublin.

— JOB