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
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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'ON THE BEACH AT FONTANA, 1993'
- Price Realised: €1,900
- Sale: 28 November 2006
- etching in colours (no. 21 from an edition of 33)
- 8 by 11cm., 3 by 4.5in.
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'SQUARE LIGHT II, 1988'
- Price Realised: €1,800
- Sale: 31 May 2021
- aquatint and etching on wove paper; (no. 13 from an edition of 25)
- 21 x 21in. (53.34 x 53.34cm)
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'WATCHING THE NEEDLE BOATS AT SAN SABA, 1993'
- Price Realised: €1,700
- Sale: 02 March 2009
- etching with aquatint (no. 2 from an edition of 33)
- 20 by 17cm., 8 by 6.75in.
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'DESIRE, 1985'
- Price Realised: €1,600
- Sale: 16 September 2019
- etching with aquatint on Arches paper; (no. 21 from an edition of 25)
- 16¾ x 23¾in. (42.55 x 60.33cm)
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'"SHE WEEPS OVER RAHOON" [No. 13], 1993'
- Price Realised: €1,600
- Sale: 28 November 2011
- etching, sugarlift, spitbite, aquatint (no. 21 from an edition of 33)
- 15 by 20cm., 6 by 8in.
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'DARK BRIDGE, 2003'
- Price Realised: €1,500
- Sale: 30 September 2013
- etching and aquatint; (no. 42 from an edition of 60)
- 12.5 by 15.5in., 31.25 by 38.75cm.
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'INIS OIRR 9, 2005'
- Price Realised: €1,500
- Sale: 15 March 2010
- digital c-print photograph (no. 90 from an edition of 100)
- 15 by 23cm., 6 by 9.25in.
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'DESIRE, 1985'
- Price Realised: €1,400
- Sale: 21 May 2012
- etching with aquatint on Arches paper; (no. 21 from an edition of 25)
- 16.75 by 23.75in., 42.545 by 60.325cm.
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'COLOURED WALL, 2003'
- Price Realised: €1,400
- Sale: 04 October 2010
- lithograph (no. 37 from an edition of 150)
- 23 by 19cm., 9 by 7.5in.
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'COLOURED WALL, 2003 and SEAN SCULLY (BOOK) by David Carrier'
- Price Realised: €1,250
- Sale: 04 March 2013
- lithograph; (no. 126 from a limited edition of 150); limited edition book; (no. 126 of 150)
- 11.75 by 9.5in., 29.375 by 23.75cm.
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'"TUTTO E SCIOLTO" [No. 4], 1993'
- Price Realised: €1,250
- Sale: 28 November 2011
- etching, sugarlift, spitbite, aquatint (no. 21 from an edition of 33)
- 15 by 10cm., 6 by 4in.
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'ALONE, 1993'
- Price Realised: €1,200
- Sale: 02 March 2009
- etching with aquatint (no. 21 from an edition of 33)
- 15 by 15cm., 5.75 by 6in.
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'A FLOWER GIVEN TO MY DAUGHTER, FROM THE PORTFOLIO POMES PENYEACH, 1993'
- Price Realised: €950
- Sale: 26 November 2012
- etching, aquatint, sugarlift, and spitbite on paper; (no. 20 from an edition of 33)
- 3 by 9in., 7.62 by 22.86cm.
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'WALLS OF ARAN BY COLM TOIBIN AND SEAN SCULLY'
- Price Realised: €500
- Sale: 13 December 2010
- limited edition book (of 100); photographic print
- 26 by 30cm., 10.2 5 by 11.7 5in.
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'INIS ÓIRR 9, 2005'
- Price Realised: €440
- Sale: 09 December 2012
- digital c-print photograph; (no. 65 from an edition of 100)
- 8 by 9.75in., 20.32 by 24.765cm.
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'AT WORK, 1995'
- Price Realised: €320
- Sale: 17 February 2020
- digital print
- 6 x 6¼in. (15.24 x 15.88cm)
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'THE COLOUR OF TIME, THE PHOTOGRAPHS OF SEAN SCULLY'
- Price Realised: €250
- Sale: 13 December 2010
- 24 by 34cm., 9.5 by 13.5in.