Sé Merry Doyle's Patrick Scott: Golden Boy, which is on RTÉ 1 tomorrow night, is a documentary tribute to the painter and designer. It takes as its starting point the retrospective of Scott's work held at the Hugh Lane Gallery in Dublin in early 2002.

The idea of the exhibition was, Scott notes wryly in the film, originally mooted several years previously. He suggested deferring it until he was 80, but by then the gallery was in the throes of organising the transportation and installation of Francis Bacon's studio, and in the end he was 81 by the time the retrospective came around.

Not that the passing of time had blunted his aesthetic instincts. Sizing up the splendid rooms of Charlemont House, the gallery's home, he boldly proposed repainting the walls. Originally he wanted a dark background to bring out the strong contrasts and brilliant colours of his tapestries, but when he saw the effect he thought: why not have dramatically dark background colours for the whole show? So, to the alarm of the curators, the rooms had a blue, green and "bullock's blood" makeover.

Scott, who was born in Kilbrittain, in Co Cork, had no formal artistic training, but he has been a lively and essential presence at the heart of Irish art and design since the 1940s. His artistic work is instantly recognisable, with its trademark use of gold leaf and geometric solar motifs, but he was also active as a designer. He is responsible for the livery of Irish trains, for example, and was involved in Rosc - the distinctive catalogue cover design is his - the pioneering series of international exhibitions of contemporary art that was initiated in 1967.

He was also involved in Kilkenny Design, perhaps the most important initiative ever taken with the aim of overhauling Irish design. Incidentally, the black-and-orange colour scheme he settled on for Iarnród Éireann is derived from his cat, Miss Mouse, who was also the subject of a portrait by him in the manner of one of Bacon's popes.

As he reveals in the film, he owes a great deal to the beneficence of the woman who lived with his Aunt Janey. She was known to him as Aunt Linda. She and Janey lived in London but visited Kilbrittain every year, and, against a background of hard economic times in Ireland, she funded his attendance as a boarder at St Columba's College, in Dublin, and then, when the outbreak of war scuppered his plans to train with an architectural firm in London, provided him with £1,000 to see him through his architectural studies in Dublin.

He recounts his meeting with the White Stag group, a group of expatriate artists, conscientious objectors who were in Dublin because of the war. Bohemian free spirits, they were a liberating influence in terms of art and life. Scott was encouraged to take pictorial chances. He bought up ornate old frames at bargain prices and painted pictures to fit them.

Hence, cruelly, his first solo show, under the auspices of White Stag, was dismissed by one reviewer as a series of poor jokes in good frames. One of his paintings, The Deserted Racecourse was lampooned at length by Myles na gCopaleen in his Irish Times column.

Scott always seems to have taken jibes about his work very well, and he likes recounting them. When he began making wet, spongy-looking paintings of bogs, liberally spattered with blobs of pigment, Basil Goulding bought one. Scott later discovered he had informally retitled the painting Bird Droppings At Eventide.

He touches on some of the battles to gain acceptance for anything vaguely contemporary artistically. These led to the establishment of the Irish Exhibition of Living Art.

In the early 1940s in Dublin he also met the extraordinarily good-looking actor Pat McLarnon, who was working at the Gate with Hilton Edwards and Micheál MacLiammóir. Scott and McLarnon went on to live together for almost 50 years, until the latter's death, in 1997.

Although he worked with the architect Michael Scott - no relation - for 15 years, he never particularly wanted to be in the profession and opted out as soon as he felt confident enough in his painting to do so - not before investing a lot of time and energy on aspects of the design of Busáras.

He represented Ireland at the Venice Biennale in 1960, although he was the last Irish artist to do so until the 1990s. In detailing the incredibly grudging and dismissive attitude of the Irish government to the whole thing he provides some indications as to why.

Although he is not specifically referred to in the film, the US artist Morris Graves was also a major influence on Scott. He lived in Ireland for a time in the 1950s, and his interest in Eastern thought and culture focused and enhanced the Japanese element of Scott's work.

Those solar devices derive from the Japanese national emblem and the pared-down geometric vocabulary, together with the use of gold leaf and plain linen, help to produce works that are distinctly Japanese in feeling.

Scott's tremendous zest for life comes across, as well as his flair for vividly recalling people and events with the kind of relish, accuracy and precision characteristic of his approach to painting and design.

The film, which includes appearances by Seamus Heaney and the potter Stephen Pearce and revisits the beautifully situated family home at Kilbrittain, is an informative and lively tribute to an indispensable talent.

Arts Lives - Patrick Scott: Golden Boy is on RTÉ 1 tomorrow at 10.15 p.m.