Scott Symons Remembered

In about 1970, when Walter Yarwood, a founding member of Painters Eleven and a well-known sculptor, was the art director at M&S, it was determined that Scott Symons, Walter and I would have a working lunch to discuss Scott’s forthcoming coffee table book, Heritage: A Romantic Look at Early Canadian Furniture.

We went to the restaurant at the Inn on the Park in Toronto, but were stopped at the door when the maître d' caught a glimpse of us. Scott was wearing a sloppy sweatshirt with a two-headed bird pendant and crumpled pants, Walter was wearing his ubiquitous iridescent blue windbreaker (which set off his ruddy complexion) and I was in my usual casual dress of the day.

Walter and I were ready to turn tail and head for the nearest greasy spoon, but not Scott, who turned to the Maître D’ and said, “I am THE Scott Symons, this is THE Walter Yarwood, THE David Shaw and we are here on business for THE Jack McClelland ... so please seat us in your restaurant.”

The Maître D’ must have been taken aback for he gave us each clip-on ties to wear. So we entered looking like a trio from another planet with our incongruous ties. We were seated in a corner away from the rest of the clientele, which was just as well when Scott rose to toast us with wine he had poured into the ice ring that his vichyssoise had arrived in.

Anyone overhearing our conversation would have had little idea that a book on furniture was being discussed as Scott regaled us with tales of “group gropes” in gay bars and other lurid stories.

After lunch, we returned to the office, where I designed some rather phallic-looking ornaments to set off the book’s text pages and chose a very erotic close up image of a table or chair to feature on the title spread. The book got an honourable mention in the Look of Books competition of 1972. It was good to see Heritage remembered in Sandra Martin’s obituary of Scott – one of the more interesting authors I ever had the privilege to work with.


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