Details

Title

White Robe

Artist/Maker

Sean Scully (American, born Ireland, 1945)

Date

1990

Medium

Oil on linen

Dimensions

96 x 120 inches

Credit

Purchase in honor of Richard A. Denny, Jr., President of the Board of Directors, 1991-94, with funds from Alfred Austell Thornton in memory of Leila Austell Thornton and Albert Edward Thornton, Sr., and Sarah Miller Venable and William Hoyt Venable

Accession #

1992.5 a-b

On View

On View - Wieland Pavilion, Skyway, Gallery 413

Like many contemporary painters, Sean Scully complicates and enlivens the geometry of the grid, which is the fundamental matrix upon which Minimalist philosophy and aesthetic is built upon. Scully’s signature stripes act as endlessly adaptable, neutral building blocks that can be combined in various states of precarious balance—verticals confront horizontals; darks wrestle lights. The thickened surfaces of works such as White Robe are countered by Scully’s geometric composition: “One of my objectives is to make the paintings ‘classical’ in one way—they do use a stable structure—but schizophrenic in another way, in the violence of the abutments.”

Image Copyright

© Sean Scully

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