Today I learned, very sadly, that the West End artist Matt Ewart has died following an illness. Matt, who - among very many other exploits - was successful in bringing art to a wider audience by persuading the owners of quality bars and restaurants to create dedicated gallery space for paintings, was the definitive West End bohemian, a man who lived for the arts; and who in the course of a busy career staged exhibitions, edited magazines, wrote poetry; and at one time ran his own business, the 90's Gallery in Otago Street.

I never learned the full details of his colourful and complicated life, but in a sometimes grey and dispiriting world he was a continual reminder that there's considerably more to life than the '9 to 5', and as an artist was both prolific and intuitive. He was a devotee of the cult poet/philosopher Kenneth White and had a consuming passion for Celtic culture, history and art. He produced a glossy magazine, Skinklin Star ("skinkling" being Scottish for "gleaming") which was a unique showcase for talented artists, writers and poets; its aim was to

"to present the light of known Scots artists and writers and to bring unknown light into the open."

He had plans - unfortunately not to be realised - to produce a new arts-based magazine centred on the West End, which was very much his natural habitat, and where he was known to probably hundreds of people from all walks of life.

His art was sometimes described as being inspired by some of the styles made famous by Picasso, but was also entirely the creation of his own inner world. One painting which sticks in my mind is a view of the Ailsa Craig, as I had never previously imagined it, and now I'll never think of that particular landmark in any other way.

I knew Matt long before I started work for Scottish Licensed Trade News but was delighted when he evolved a characteristically imaginative plan to find new and more popular ways of displaying original art by putting it on show in contemporary bars and restaurants - an idea which is now very well established, and not just in Glasgow.

I learned of his passing from Joe Boyle, who with his partner Yvonne Smith runs Glasworks Glasgow, famously responsibly for the unique windows in the Lismore Bar in Partick and, of course, for very much more besides. They were very much part of the same community as Matt, and were his good friends. And of course they were at what appears to have been a signally fitting funeral ceremonyat Lanark.

Now Matt is somewhere else - probably a far, far better place - or, as Omar Khayam had it (I mention Omar because Matt, maybe in the 60's or 70's, must have had a pint once or twice in the old Rubaiyat in Byres Road):

"The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it."

Roy Beers