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I
rish
& I
nternational
A
rt
A
uction
M
onday
25
th
A
pril
2016
at
6.00
pm
67
80
Sean Scully (b.1945) 3.17.02 (2002)signed, titled & dated ‘02
watercolour
51 x 57cm (20 x 22in)
Provenance:
Sotheby’s, London, 27th June 2012 Lot 337
Private Collection
€30,000-40,000 (£23,437-31,250)
Scully was born in Dublin in 1945 and raised in South London. He studied at Croydon College of Art and Newcastle University. He
was a recipient of a graduate fellowship at Harvard in the early 1970s and subsequently settled in NewYork. His work is represented
in the permanent collections of many major museums and public galleries around the world and for many years Scully’s works have
achieved some of the highest prices paid for a living artist and he is undoubtedly the most successful Irish born living artist. Scully’s
paintings are often made up of a number of panels and are abstract. His paintings typically involve architectural constructions of
abutting walls and panels of painted stripes. In recent years he has augmented his trademark stripes by also deploying a mode of
compositional patterning more reminiscent of a checkerboard. He has stated that this style represents the way in which Ireland has
moved towards a more chequered society and he relates this to growing up in Ireland where everything was chequered, even the
fields and the people.