CAMPBELL Smith, who has died aged 47, was the best artist in Scotland I knew, although there were several artists pretty close. As it turns out, those close ones were Campbell's friends from East Kilbride in the fifties and sixties, where from an early age at school they got into art and music.

Campbell Smith was at the peak of his talents. In powerful image, line colour, and composition, he was forever working and producing pastels and paintings that would take the world and bounce it back, so eloquently and yet with careful force, whether he looked at an ancient reference - The Queen of Sheba - or a vase of ruby tulips.

Even so, in spite of numerous exhibitions at home and abroad, full recognition was yet to come.

Over the past 25 years, since I met Campbell at Glasgow School of Art - he was a student there from 1968-1973 - I never knew him lose sight, or grip, of painting as his complete, almost obsessional, calling. He was always profoundly aware, and grateful, for his talents, which he extended and developed fearlessly, into a unique and idiosyncratic style that could have playful quirkiness as well as insight.

That style I've heard described as ''theatrical''; Campbell's paintings may be peopled by Big Sad Man or the Wood Chopper, bizarrely represented in clothes and in setting, but what actor or director could have brought home that mysterious ironic look, colour, or atmosphere?

Campbell's visions were only for painting. His paintings come at you and talk about the very act of painting - there's no compromise and no comparison possible. I remember him in his studio in Glasgow putting flowers in a white bowl in front of his easel and saying: ''There's the title, Sexy Flowers''. What can the term ''still life'' mean anymore, when the result is such captured energy?

Why no proper recognition for such an accomplished artist? For that Campbell often said you have to look at art dealers and gallery directors who won't take risks with the unusual, and, sadly, a public mostly not yet attuned to visual art and its power to enlighten and enliven. Campbell exhibited, though, wherever he could find a good venue, but often that took him out of Scotland to Belgium, the US and, latterly, Spain.

There were collectors, though, particularly in and around Glasgow, who bought paintings privately from Campbell through the years. There must be dozens of such paintings, and it is the wish of Campbell's friends and admirers that some of these, along with a stock of work in Campbell's studio, be borrowed and gathered into a future commemorative exhibition.

In life, Campbell showed the same enthusiasm and integrity as he put into his work. Basically peaceful, he could be wild one moment, and utterly charming the next.

He could be witty, communicative, and understanding, while impatient with stupidity. His mind had a poetic quality that sought the same in his interests, especially in music.

He found love in his life more than once, and at the end was fortunate that his girlfriend, Peggy, was always close by.

It was touching to hear at Campbell's funeral that his last two paintings were The Cat's Pyjamas and The Bee's Knees. For, as was said at the time, as a painter and man of integrity, these titles describe Campbell Smith exactly.