Tuesday, November 8, 2011

A little bit more about Scully and his work.

Scully's work is heavily influenced by the American and European traditions, embodied in the figures of Mondrian and Matisse in Europe, and Pollock and Rothko in America. How to combine these different influences has remained the basic question of Scully's work, to which he gave slightly different answers throughout the decades.
During the 70's, when he moved to New York and set up a studio, his work is dominated by a minimalism that is reflected in the rigid geometric precision of his art. In the 80's we can see his work move towards much more freedom in their composition. This art is characterised by marks of thick brushstrokes and textured surfaces, yet still retaining the stripe, a constant presence in Scully's art.
More recently Sean Scully has been drawn towards the "visually, edgy" potential of severe abstraction and the emotional power of certain works, like Frank Stella's black paintings and Agnes Martin's grids. 
He has also explored the possibilities of photography and this medium became an important source of inspiration in his later work. We can see the mutual influence between his photographic series "wall of light" and his paintings, in which fading walls and cracked surfaces show a decadent beauty and the contradiction of nature and life.
"To become an artist was the most adventurous, in a sense the most dangerous, the most insecure, and, potentially, the most profound thing I could do" Sean Scully.

Scully's paintings are often made up of a number of panels and are abstract. Most of his pieces feature stripes and in some alternating areas of vertical and horizontal stripes are arranged in a chessboard pattern. Scully paints in oils, sometimes laying the paint on quite thickly to create textured surfaces.
Scully was nominated for the Turner Prize in 1989 and 1993. He has exhibited widely in Europe and the United States: including exhibitions at
  • The Kunstammlung Nordeim Westfalen in Dusseldoerf, Germany, (2001)
  • The Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY (2000)
  • The Milwaukee Art Museum, Denver Art Museum, and Albright-Knox Gallery (1998-99)
  • Galeria Arte Moderna, Villa delle Rose in Bologna, and Galerie National de Jeu de Paumme in Paris (1996)
He recently donated eight of his paintings to the Hugh Lane Gallery in Dublin. This gallery is currently building an extension which will include a room dedicated to Sean Scully.
Scully's work has been on exhibit at The Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C. in 2006.





Work Cited.
"Sean Scully Biography." High Quality Art Prints & Limited Edition Art with Free Delivery. Web. 08 Nov. 2011. <http://www.artrepublic.com/biographies/99-sean-scully.html>.




Works in Collections:

  • The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
  • Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
  • The Museum of Modern Art, New York
  • The Guggenheim Museum, New York
  • The Art Institute of Chicago
  • The National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., including
    • 8.10.89 (1989)
  • The Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington D.C.
    • Works in the SAAM collection
  • The Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.
  • The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.
  • The Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo
  • Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minneapolis
  • Walker Art Center, Minneapolis
  • The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth
    • Catherine (1982)
  • The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
  • The National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
  • Museo Nacional Reina Sofía, Madrid
  • Tate Modern, London
    • Works in the Tate collection
  • The Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin
  • The Hugh Lane Gallery, Dublin, including
    • Sanda (1992)
  • Nagoya City Art Museum, Japan
  • Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto.
  • Boca Raton Museum of Art, Boca Raton

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