Sean Scully: Figure Abstract

Sean Scully: Figure Abstract

Marc O'Sullivan, Beate Reifenscheid • Hatje Cantz

ISBN-10: 3775739009 · ISBN-13: 978‑3775739009 · 2014

Live offer for this book: 8 live copies of this book from $28.45 (as of 2026-09-09).

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Sean Scully (* 1945 in Dublin) is considered one of the most significant abstract painters of our time. For decades he has produced a wealth of variations on his core theme of lines and st ripes, creating works with a fascinating range of tone and expression from the romantic to the melancholic. Early on in his ca­reer Scully did figural work, to which he still feels in­debted; “To this day my paintings retain a sense of the body, and the feeling of a physical relationship with the world.” He considers German Expressionism one of his sources of inspiration and specifically cites the influence of artists André Derain, Henri Matisse, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner. The stroke of the brush is a visible component of his paint­erly abstractions. The edges of his fields of color are delineated by hand, which lends his compositions a haptic quality. Presenting surprising new perspec­tives on the artist’s work, this publication is the first study on the interplay between figuration and ab­straction in Scully’s oeuvre.

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