Image: Sean Scully
Untitled (Window) (detail), 2017, by Sean Scully (American, born Ireland 1945) (Collection of the artist) © Sean Scully
Museum Exhibitions

Sean Scully The Shape of Ideas

Spring 2022
Philadelphia Museum of Art

Opening spring 2022 

Encounter the poetic sensibility and technical virtuosity of one of the leading abstract artists of our time. Sean Scully’s arresting paintings and works on paper, presented here in a comprehensive fifty-year retrospective, explore his signature stripes and reflect the artist’s bold experimentation with scale and composition. From the intimate to the monumental, the works on view stir the spirit and reveal Scully’s tireless dedication to the expressive power of painting.

About the Artist

Sean Scully (born Dublin, Ireland, 1945) works in the mediums of painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, and photography. He has been the recipient of numerous awards, including the Peter Stuyvesant Foundation Prize, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the Harkness Fellowship. He has been nominated twice for the Turner Prize.

Scully’s works are in a number of private and public collections, including the Philadelphia Museum of Art; the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Texas; the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC; the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, Connecticut; and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, among others.

In 2015 Scully participated in the Venice Biennale with his solo exhibition Land Sea at the Palazzo Falier. For the 2019 Biennale, the artist presented Human, a solo exhibition at the historic Basilica of San Giorgio. He currently splits his time living and working in New York and the Bavarian countryside of Munich.

Sponsors

Sean Scully: The Shape of Ideas is made possible by Emily and Mike Cavanagh and Constance and Sankey Williams, with support from the museum’s endowment through the Annenberg Foundation Fund for Major Exhibitions, the Robert Montgomery Scott Endowment for Exhibitions, the Kathleen C. and John J. F. Sherrerd Fund for Exhibitions, the Gloria and Jack Drosdick Fund for Special Exhibitions, the Jill and Sheldon Bonovitz Exhibition Fund, and Constance and Sankey Williams.

Curators

Timothy Rub, The George D. Widener Director and Chief Executive Officer; and Amanda Sroka, Assistant Curator of Contemporary Art.
Inset #2, 1973, by Sean Scully (American, born Ireland 1945) (Collection of the artist) © Sean Scully

Inset #2, 1973, by Sean Scully (American, born Ireland 1945) (Collection of the artist) © Sean Scully

Backs and Fronts, 1981, by Sean Scully (American, born Ireland 1945) (Collection of the artist) © Sean Scully

Backs and Fronts, 1981, by Sean Scully (American, born Ireland 1945) (Collection of the artist) © Sean Scully

Pale Fire, 1988, by Sean Scully (American, born Ireland 1945) (Collection of the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth: Museum...

Pale Fire, 1988, by Sean Scully (American, born Ireland 1945) (Collection of the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth: Museum purchase, Sid W. Richardson Foundation Endowment Fund) © Sean Scully

1.21.89, 1989, by Sean Scully (American, born Ireland 1945) (Collection of the artist) © Sean Scully

1.21.89, 1989, by Sean Scully (American, born Ireland 1945) (Collection of the artist) © Sean Scully

Uist, 1991, by Sean Scully (American, born Ireland 1945) (Private Collection. Courtesy of Beaumont Nathan Art Advisory) © Sean Scully

Uist, 1991, by Sean Scully (American, born Ireland 1945) (Private Collection. Courtesy of Beaumont Nathan Art Advisory) © Sean Scully

6.2.00, 2000, by Sean Scully (American, born Ireland 1945) (Collection of the artist) © Sean Scully

6.2.00, 2000, by Sean Scully (American, born Ireland 1945) (Collection of the artist) © Sean Scully

Selection from Sketchbook, 1980–81, by Sean Scully (American, born Ireland 1945) (Collection of the artist) © Sean Scully

Selection from Sketchbook, 1980–81, by Sean Scully (American, born Ireland 1945) (Collection of the artist) © Sean Scully

Union Yellow, 1994, by Sean Scully (American, born Ireland 1945) (Collection of the artist) © Sean Scully

Union Yellow, 1994, by Sean Scully (American, born Ireland 1945) (Collection of the artist) © Sean Scully

Landline Pink, 2013, by Sean Scully (American, born Ireland 1945) (Collection of the artist) © Sean Scully

Landline Pink, 2013, by Sean Scully (American, born Ireland 1945) (Collection of the artist) © Sean Scully

Artist Sean Scully. Photo by Felix Friedmann © Felix Friedmann Photography

Artist Sean Scully. Photo by Felix Friedmann © Felix Friedmann Photography

Untitled (Window), 2017, by Sean Scully (American, born Ireland 1945) (Collection of the artist) © Sean Scully

Untitled (Window), 2017, by Sean Scully (American, born Ireland 1945) (Collection of the artist) © Sean Scully

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