Sean Scully was born in Dublin, moved to London in 1949 and settled in America in the mid-1970s. Today he splits his time between New York City, Barcelona and Munich.
Having studied at the Central School of Art, Croydon College of Art and Newcastle University, Scully was awarded a Frank Knox Fellowship at Harvard University (1972 – 1973), a Harkness Fellowship in 1975 and has held teaching posts at Chelsea School of Art and Design, Goldsmith’s College, and Princeton University.
Scully is best known as a painter of monumental works in oil, although he is also a printmaker, producing woodcuts and etchings. He abandoned figurative work in the mid-1960s and has since established a reputation as an abstract painter. Drawing on the traditions of Abstract Expressionism, he creates strongly articulated pieces: canvases on heavy stretchers, abutting panels and architectural constructions that project themselves into the viewer’s space. Abandoning precise delineation for a looser, more painterly handling of paint, his use of colour, subtle nuances and stark contrasts testifies to a concern with light and beauty.
He had his first major exhibition at the Rowan Gallery in 1973 and today his work is held in major public collections worldwide, including The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Tate, London.
Born: 1945 in Dublin
Nationality: American, Irish
Elected RA: 12 December 2012
Elected Senior RA: 1 October 2021
Gender: Male
Preferred media: Painting and Printmaking
Sean Scully RA, Doric Sea.
2018 Sean Scully: Landline, Hirshhorn Museum & Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.
Boxes of Air, Parque Fundidora, Mexico
Sean Scully: Landlines and other recent works, De Pont Museum, Tilburg, Netherlands
Sean Scully: Standing on the Edge of the World, Hong Kong Art Center
Vita Duplex, Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe, Germany
Sean Scully: No Words, Edward Hopper House, Nyack, New York
Facing East, The Marble Palace, State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg
Sean Scully. Wall of Light, Mnuchin Gallery, New York
Sean Scully: 1970, Laing Art Gallery and Hatton Gallery, Newcastle upon Tyne
Sean Scully, Cuadra San Cristóbal, Mexico City
2017 Facing East, Multimedia Art Museum, Moscow
Before New York, Sean Scully Studio, Berlin
Sean Scully, Lempertz, Brussels
Coming and Going, Sean Scully Studio, New York
Sean Scully: Wall of Light Cubed, Cheim & Read, New York
Sean Scully. Resistance and Persistence, Hubei Art Museum, Wuhan, China
Arts Council of Great Britain, London, UK
Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, USA
Birmingham Museum of Art, Birmingham, UK
Dublin City Gallery, Dublin, Ireland
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, UK
Hunterian Art Gallery, Glasgow, UK
Kunsthaus Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA
Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre Georges
Pompidou, Paris, France
Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City, Mexico
Museum Moderner Kunst (MUMOK), Vienna, Austria
Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), New York, UK
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC, USA
Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, USA
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, USA
Tate, London, UK
The British Museum, London, UK
Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, USA
Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester, UK
Sean Scully RA discusses his new series of paintings with Tim Marlow, the RA’s Artistic Director. He talks about movement and metaphor within his work, his attempts to catch and hold the light, and the relationship between his paintings, the vertical walls of Venice and the eddying waters beneath.
From artists’ abodes to land art on Beachy Head, the beautiful south is a cultural hotspot this summer.
The power and complexity of Abstract Expressionist art lies in the diverse sensibilities of its artists. Here six Royal Academicians respond to some of the movement’s greatest painters.
