Sean Scully
Year of birth, place
1945
Ireland
Role at the ZKM
- Artist of the Collection
Biography
Sean Scully was born in Dublin in 1945 and moved to London with his family in 1949. He studied (1965-73) at Croydon College of Art, London, at Newcastle University, and at Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. In 1975 he moved to the United States and in 1983 became an American citizen. He lives in New York and London.
Scully's painted images are characterized by juxtaposed sets of parallel horizontal and vertical stripes, varying in length but generally rather broad in relation to their length. He tends to apply paint relatively thickly, favouring warmer tones in the orange-red-brown range together with subtly nuanced shades of grey and black. The painted stripes never overlap each other, ending where they abut and forming into rhythmically structured fields. Many pictures are in fact made up out of several individual panels, the totality of separate pictorial elements constituting a geometrically constructed composition.
Individual exhibitions (selection)
1973 Rowan Gallery, London
1979 »Painting for One Place«, Nadin Gallery, New York
1989 Whitechapel Art Galerie, London, subsequently at Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, Munich; Palacio Velázquez del Retiro, Madrid
1992 »Sean Scully: Paintings 1973-1992«, Sert Gallery, Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA
1993 »Sean Scully«, Mary Boone Gallery, New York
1994 »Catherine Paintings«, Palais des Beaux-Arts Charleroi, subsequently at Kunsthalle, Bielefeld
1996 »Paintings and Works on Paper«, Galleria di Arte Moderna-Villa delle Rose, Bologna; »Sean Scully: Twenty Years«, Fundació »la Caixa«, Barcelona, subsequently at Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt/M; »Floating Paintings, Paintings and Works on Paper«, Galerie Nationale du Jeu de Paume, Paris
1997 Henie-Onstad Art Center, Hövikodden, subsequently at The Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester; Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery of Modern Art, Dublin; Galerie Jamileh Weber, Zürich; Palacio Episcopal, Málaga
Group exhibitions (selection)
1969 »Northern Young Contemporaries«, The Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester
1973 »La Peinture Anglaise Aujourd'hui«, Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris
1984 »An International Survey of Recent Painting and Sculpture«, The Museum of Modern Art, New York
1989 »Essential Painting«, Nelson Atkins Museum, Kansas City
1992 »Geteilte Bilder«, Museum Folkwang, Essen
1993 »Drawing in Black and White«, The Museum of Modern Art, New York
1995 »New York Abstract«, Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans
1996 »Nuevas Abstraciones«, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía; Palacio Velázquez, Madrid; »Thinking Print«, The Museum of Modern Art, New York
[David Richardt, 1997]
Scully's painted images are characterized by juxtaposed sets of parallel horizontal and vertical stripes, varying in length but generally rather broad in relation to their length. He tends to apply paint relatively thickly, favouring warmer tones in the orange-red-brown range together with subtly nuanced shades of grey and black. The painted stripes never overlap each other, ending where they abut and forming into rhythmically structured fields. Many pictures are in fact made up out of several individual panels, the totality of separate pictorial elements constituting a geometrically constructed composition.
Individual exhibitions (selection)
1973 Rowan Gallery, London
1979 »Painting for One Place«, Nadin Gallery, New York
1989 Whitechapel Art Galerie, London, subsequently at Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, Munich; Palacio Velázquez del Retiro, Madrid
1992 »Sean Scully: Paintings 1973-1992«, Sert Gallery, Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA
1993 »Sean Scully«, Mary Boone Gallery, New York
1994 »Catherine Paintings«, Palais des Beaux-Arts Charleroi, subsequently at Kunsthalle, Bielefeld
1996 »Paintings and Works on Paper«, Galleria di Arte Moderna-Villa delle Rose, Bologna; »Sean Scully: Twenty Years«, Fundació »la Caixa«, Barcelona, subsequently at Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt/M; »Floating Paintings, Paintings and Works on Paper«, Galerie Nationale du Jeu de Paume, Paris
1997 Henie-Onstad Art Center, Hövikodden, subsequently at The Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester; Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery of Modern Art, Dublin; Galerie Jamileh Weber, Zürich; Palacio Episcopal, Málaga
Group exhibitions (selection)
1969 »Northern Young Contemporaries«, The Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester
1973 »La Peinture Anglaise Aujourd'hui«, Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris
1984 »An International Survey of Recent Painting and Sculpture«, The Museum of Modern Art, New York
1989 »Essential Painting«, Nelson Atkins Museum, Kansas City
1992 »Geteilte Bilder«, Museum Folkwang, Essen
1993 »Drawing in Black and White«, The Museum of Modern Art, New York
1995 »New York Abstract«, Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans
1996 »Nuevas Abstraciones«, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía; Palacio Velázquez, Madrid; »Thinking Print«, The Museum of Modern Art, New York
[David Richardt, 1997]