Sean Scully: Painting, Watercolors, Photographs

The Irish-born artist Sean Scully has created a painterly oeuvre that, in this volume, reveals itself as vitally important in the ongoing dialogue about painting. Horizontal and vertical stripes are the sole motif in his work. He alternately groups strips of paint together and lays multiple stripes of color over one another, which produce visually irritating clashes. It is a working method that is revealed in the works themselves, in the places where these dueling lines meet; edges tell the story of process. The seemingly endless number of neutral stripes leave these paintings open to a variety of interpretations; they allow the viewers freedom to imprint their own visions on them. Usually in a large format, they recall landscapes, facades, buildings, and ornaments. Along with 254 color reproductions, this book includes a complete biography, several critical essays, and an illuminating interview with the artist.

Sean Scully was born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1945. Since moving to the United States in the mid-1970s, Scully has taught at major institutions including Princeton University, received a Guggenheim Fellowship, and been the subject of a major touring exhibition organized by the High Museum in Atlanta in 1996. He is represented in virtually every major public collection of 20th-century art.

Essays by Francisco Jarauta, Bernd Kluser, Maria Muller and Armin Zweite.

254 color and 5 b&w images

11.75 x 9.75 inches