Author Description

The painting of Sean Scully (born 1945) is unmistakable in its simplicity, and yet generative of endless variation and richness. His chunky, heavily worked, vertical bands of color abutting horizontal bands of color, which may be applied to canvas or to metal plates, seem to explore and express everything that can be said with color, from steely sobriety to pulsating warmth. In this way, Scully continually develops the discoveries of predecessors such as Albers and Rothko. This book focuses on his most recent output, which the artist himself sums up thus: "All my life, I have been driven by some guilt or other. It is only in the past few years that this has ended... and I increasingly like myself better for it. I only do things that I really want to do. This has caused me to attempt big things."