Sean Scully

Sean Scully Synopsis

In a spectacular move, the Albertina presents Sean Scully from a hitherto unfamiliar side with a series of large figurative paintings of his son Oisìn playing on the beach of Eleuthera, an island in the Bahamas. Scully's inimitable pictures used to rely solely on paint - applied with a strong, but above all abstract gesture - the new series however appears like a surprising point of reversal. Yet, the new paintings are a return to his earliest beginnings, as, in the 1950s, Scully embarked along the Fauves and German Expressionism from realism into the realm of pure colour. Even today, abstraction, as he sees it, is still infused with memories of figurative sources. This richly illustrated catalogue brings together all Oisìn-Paintings, enriched by graphic works from Albertina's collection, extensive material from Scully's private archive, as well as in-depth essays by Werner Spies and Elisabeth Dutz elaborating on this newly obtained painterly freedom.