Patrick Scott was a founder member of Aosdána, the association of artists, and a Saoi in the organisation – the highest honour that members of the group can bestow upon a fellow member.

Writer Anthony Cronin described him last night as "a person of great charm and presence", saluting his "significantly original achievement and high international reputation".

The chairman of the Aosdána toscaireacht, or committee, artist Brian Maguire, noted that Scott "worked right up to the last".

"His most recent commission was of beautiful coloured windows for a Galway cinema. An Irish artist, he contributed internationally. He was loved by his colleagues and will be deeply missed."

Imma director Sarah Glennie described Scott as "one of Ireland's greatest artists".

"The major exhibition of his work at the Irish Museum of Modern Art is testament to the importance of his life and career to Ireland. The legacy that he leaves us in his work will ensure that he will continue to inspire future generations."

Sheila Pratschke, incoming chairwoman of the Arts Council, said: "Not only was Patrick Scott a singularly important painter with a wholly unique, elegant and sophisticated sensibility, but more broadly he had an enormous impact on the development of Ireland as a modern, culturally sophisticated society through his wider involvement with design and architecture."

Speaking from New York, RHA director Patrick T Murphy said that his work was of lasting historical importance.

"More than any other artist, Pat Scott brought scale, delicacy and ambition to geometric abstraction in Ireland in the second half of the 20th century. His large-scale work didn't set out to confront or compete with modernist architecture.

“Instead it harmonised its spaces, making them more beautiful, and thus much more human. It is sad to lose a great artist.”

Painter Anne Madden, long close to Scott, said: "Personally I am very sorry to lose a friend. Pat was a very fine painter and a very honourable man. His paintings are very like him – illuminating and gentle, as he was."

Minister for the Arts Jimmy Deenihan described him as "a guiding light in the Irish art world for many decades".