Seán Scully

Seán Scully was born in Dublin in 1945. Before the end of the decade, his family had moved to London, where he was brought up in the East End of the city. For a couple of years in his teens he was an apprentice at a printing shop, and he went on to practice graphic design. But his ambitions lay in painting, and after attending evening classes at the Central School of Art he studied full-time at Croydon and Newcastle. Thereafter he followed the usual course of a young artist: teaching at third level while setting about making and exhibiting his own work. But he began to pick up fellowships and prizes. A trip to Morocco was important in indicating the direction he would follow, as was his interest in Mark Rothko. One of the fellowships he was awarded brought him to the United States and, although he was becoming well established in Britain, in the mid-1970s he took the brave step of moving to New York. The art world in Manhattan was, and is, a tough arena. He has described it as “a battlefield”. During his first years there he made a series of austere, almost monochromatic abstracts. They consist of tight, regular bands of greyish colour and they are closed and defensive in character.

Around 1980, his style began to change significantly. In a way he was going through an artistic crisis. It was resolved in a huge, remarkable painting, Backs and Fronts, made for a group exhibition. This big, vibrant, boldly patterned, multi-coloured painting, made up of a series of panels joined together, was in marked contrast to his previous work. What happened was that, having taken his painterly language a long way towards minimalist abstraction, he had changed tack and begun to allow himself a much wider vocabulary. Mind you, in a way his expanded vocabulary is relatively retrained, consisting of stripes and blocks of colour, often intense colour, in various arrangements. While the underlying structure is geometrically precise, the paint is applied with considerable variety of touch, imparting a sense of human fallibility and expressiveness to the impersonal grid.

While he is an abstract painter, he often uses titles that refer to places, or states of mind, or to works of literature. The paintings are not illustrations of these things but there is a relationship between the subject and the form of the painting. One of his most celebrated, ongoing series of paintings, Wall of Light, was originally inspired by the way the intense sunlight set the walls of buildings in Mexico aglow.

...Seán Scully ranks as one of the most highly regarded painters worldwide, someone who has reinvigorated abstraction. Based in New York, he also spends time in Barcelona, where he keeps a studio, and in Munich, where he was a visiting professor of painting for several years. Although he left Ireland while still very young, his Irish roots and identity remain incredibly important to him, as is underlined by the fact that he gave a gift of eight large paintings to Dublin City Gallery the Hugh Lane, where some of his work will always be on display. Important works by him can also be seen at the Irish Museum of Modern Art as well as in numerous museums abroad.

(excerpt from catalogue essay)
Aidan Dunne
Dublin, October 2006

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Found 52 item(s) / Showing 1-28

'CURACAO, 1997'
- Price Realised: €92,000
- Sale: 28 November 2006
- oil on linen mounted on panel
- 47 by 38cm., 18.5 by 15in.
'UNTITLED, 1993'
- Price Realised: €64,000
- Sale: 19 September 2006
- watercolour and gouache over pencil on paper
- 39 by 38cm., 15.5 by 15in.
'UNTITLED, 1988'
- Price Realised: €30,000
- Sale: 28 November 2006
- pastel and watercolour on Waterford paper
- 56 by 76cm., 22 by 30in.
'UNTITLED NO. 9, 1982'
- Price Realised: €28,500
- Sale: 28 April 2008
- oil, acrylic and oil stick on paper
- 66 by 102cm., 26 by 40in.
'MUNICH MIRRORS, 2003 [SET OF FIVE]'
- Price Realised: €13,000
- Sale: 03 March 2025
- aquatint and spit bite; (no. 37 from an edition of 40); (5)
- 13½ x 9¼in. (34.29 x 23½cm)
'EDITION OF ONE, 1988'
- Price Realised: €10,000
- Sale: 27 September 2021
- monotype and pencil on wove paper
- 11 x 11in. (27.94 x 27.94cm)
'WALL OF LIGHT CRIMSON, 2005'
- Price Realised: €8,700
- Sale: 29 September 2008
- aquatint (no. 25 from an edition of 40)
- 44 by 55cm., 17.5 by 21.7 5in.
'WALL OF LIGHT CRIMISON, 2005'
- Price Realised: €8,700
- Sale: 17 May 2008
- aquatint (no. 28 from an edition of 40)
- 46 by 56cm., 18 by 22in.
'CONVERSATION, 1986'
- Price Realised: €8,500
- Sale: 17 September 2007
- woodcut on Okawara paper (no. 10 from an edition of 40)
- 76 by 112cm., 30 by 44in.
'STANDING I, 1986'
- Price Realised: €8,000
- Sale: 21 February 2006
- woodcut print (no. 35 from an edition of 35)
- 102 by 75cm., 40 by 29.5in.
'WALL OF LIGHT RED, 2002'
- Price Realised: €7,500
- Sale: 30 September 2024
- aquatint in colours; (no. 29 from an edition of 40)
- 17¾ x 21¾in. (45.09 x 55¼cm)
'YELLOW RED, 1994'
- Price Realised: €7,000
- Sale: 31 May 2021
- etching with aquatint; (no. 18 from an edition of 30)
- 15¾ x 29½in. (40.01 x 74.93cm)
'STANDING II, 1986'
- Price Realised: €6,800
- Sale: 19 February 2007
- woodblock print (no. 7 from an edition of 10 artist's proof)
- 102 by 76cm., 40 by 30in.
'PARIS RED WALL, 2004'
- Price Realised: €6,400
- Sale: 19 February 2007
- lithograph (no. 9 from an edition of 40)
- 76 by 93cm., 30 by 36.5in.
'CONVERSATION, 1986'
- Price Realised: €6,200
- Sale: 27 May 2024
- woodcut on Okawara paper; (no. 10 from an edition of 40)
- 30 x 44in. (76.20 x 111.76cm)
'PARIS BLACK, 2004'
- Price Realised: €6,200
- Sale: 28 November 2016
- lithograph; (from an edition of 40)
- 28 x 40in. (71.12 x 101.60cm)
'FIVE UNIONS, 1996 (COMPLETE SET OF FIVE DIPTYCHS)'
- Price Realised: €5,800
- Sale: 31 May 2021
- etchings with aquatint: (each no. 10 from an edition of 40)
- 3½ x 5in. (8.89 x 12.70cm)
'COLOURED WALL, 2003'
- Price Realised: €5,400
- Sale: 30 April 2007
- lithograph (no. 35 from an edition of 150)
- 22 by 18cm., 8.5 by 7in.
'BARCELONA ROBE, 2005'
- Price Realised: €5,200
- Sale: 28 September 2015
- aquatint; (no. 20 from an edition of 40)
- 21¼ x 15¼in. (53.98 x 38.74cm)
'BARCELONA NOCHE, 2005'
- Price Realised: €5,200
- Sale: 28 September 2015
- aquatint; (no. 23 from an edition of 40)
- 15¼ x 21¼in. (38.74 x 53.98cm)
'NIGHT, 2005'
- Price Realised: €5,000
- Sale: 26 February 2018
- aquatint with sugarlift and spit bite; (no. 13 from an edition of 40)
- 18 x 22in. (45.72 x 55.88cm)
'WALL OF LIGHT CRIMSON, 2005'
- Price Realised: €4,800
- Sale: 26 November 2018
- aquatint; (no. 11 from an edition of 40)
- 18 x 22in. (45.72 x 55.88cm)
'BLUE FOLD, 2007'
- Price Realised: €4,600
- Sale: 25 February 2008
- lithograph (no. 12 from an edition of 50)
- 81 by 61cm., 32 by 24in.
'PARIS RED WALL, 2004'
- Price Realised: €4,500
- Sale: 28 May 2018
- lithograph; (no. 9 from an edition of 40)
- 30 x 36½in. (76.20 x 92.71cm)
'Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness'
- Price Realised: €4,000
- Sale: 10 December 2005
'NARCISSUS, 1991'
- Price Realised: €3,800
- Sale: 19 February 2007
- woodblock print (no. 14 from an edition of 30)
- 28 by 22cm., 11 by 8.75in.
'BLUE FOLD, 2007'
- Price Realised: €3,500
- Sale: 28 September 2009
- lithograph (no. 12 from an edition of 50)
- 81 by 61cm., 32 by 24in.
'HORIZON I, 2003'
- Price Realised: €3,200
- Sale: 30 April 2007
- aquatint (no. 23 from an edition of 40)
- 30 by 20cm., 11.7 5 by 7.75in.

'CURACAO, 1997'

'UNTITLED, 1993'

'UNTITLED, 1988'

'UNTITLED NO. 9, 1982'

'MUNICH MIRRORS, 2003 [SET OF FIVE]'

'EDITION OF ONE, 1988'

'WALL OF LIGHT CRIMSON, 2005'

'WALL OF LIGHT CRIMISON, 2005'

'CONVERSATION, 1986'

'STANDING I, 1986'

'WALL OF LIGHT RED, 2002'

'YELLOW RED, 1994'

'STANDING II, 1986'

'PARIS RED WALL, 2004'

'CONVERSATION, 1986'

'PARIS BLACK, 2004'

'FIVE UNIONS, 1996 (COMPLETE SET OF FIVE DIPTYCHS)'

'COLOURED WALL, 2003'

'BARCELONA ROBE, 2005'

'BARCELONA NOCHE, 2005'

'NIGHT, 2005'

'WALL OF LIGHT CRIMSON, 2005'

'BLUE FOLD, 2007'

'PARIS RED WALL, 2004'

'Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness'

'NARCISSUS, 1991'

'BLUE FOLD, 2007'

'HORIZON I, 2003'