Exhibition Overview
Sean Scully is one of the most significant and influential abstract painters working today. He was born in Dublin and raised in a working-class Irish Catholic community in London. On a trip to Morocco he was moved by the beauty of djelleba robes, kilim rugs, and tents made of strips of wool and canvas. Scully has since become best known for his paintings of lines, stripes, and blocks of color.
The exhibition of new work painted for this exhibition and a selection of never-exhibited watercolors from the artist’s personal collection will inaugurate the Pleasant T. Rowland Galleries on the expansion’s main floor. An exhibition of Scully’s oil paintings has not been shown in Wisconsin, and because of the large scale of this work the Chazen was never able to show it in the past. The high walls of the large temporary exhibition space make such an installation possible for the first time in the museum’s history.
IMAGE: Sean Scully (American, b. Ireland 1945), Cut Ground Blue Pink Red, 2011, oil on linen, 28 x 32 in. Chazen Museum of Art, © Sean Scully. Image © 2011 Etienne Frossard, all rights reserved
Programming & Financial Support
Generous support for this exhibition has been provided by the Chazen Museum of Art Council, the Dane County Cultural Affairs Commission, the Madison Arts Commission, and the Wisconsin Arts Board with funds from the State of Wisconsin and the National Endowment for the Arts.