LAURENCE HERBERT SCOTT, an artist, publisher and polymath, died on this date in Detroit, Michigan (b: 1933); He grew up in Ann Arbor and graduated from Ann Arbor High School and the University of Michigan. He received an M.A. from Harvard and did further studies there in Slavic languages. At Harvard he was a tutor at Lowell House and he later taught at M.I.T.

While in Cambridge, he started a small press that printed broadsides of poems by Ezra Pound, W.H. Auden, Robert Lowell, and Allen Ginsberg. He also printed and worked in long, close relationships with the poets Marianne Moore and James Merrill. In later years he designed gardens, was on the Dean Fund, and was very active in Gay-Feminist politics.

For 25 years he was a consultant to Abby Rockefeller and represented her company Clivus Multrum in Canada and Michigan. Laurence was interested in preserving and enhancing the environment both locally and globally. Poet, artist, gourmand and gardener extraordinaire, Laurence was fluent in eight languages. He delighted in words and images.

He is survived by his life partner of 35 years Dr. Gerald G. Naylor.