Sean Scully

A world-renowned abstract painter, Sean Scully is one of the leading artists of his generation. He is best known for his impactful and internationally recognisable paintings balancing dynamic bands of colour in rhythmic formulations, capturing tonality, light and mood with great drama and delicacy.

Sean Scully 
Male Nude Lying on a Bed 1964
graphite and gouache on paper

38.4 x 35 cm / 15.1 x 13.8 in


Images courtesy of the artist and Kerlin Gallery

Survey

  • Landlines and other recent works, 2018

    De Pont Museum of Contemporary Art, Tilburg, The Netherlands

  • Black Square Colored Land, 2021

    Oil on aluminum
    34.6 x 30.5 cm / 13.6 x 12 in

  • The Albee Barn, 2025

    Montauk at the Parrish Art Museum, Water Mill, NY
    Photo: © Gary Mamay

  • Boxes Full of Air, 2015

    corten steel
    3.66 x 6.10 x 15.24 m / 12 x 20 x 50 ft 
    Château La Coste, Aix-en-Provence

Biography

Sean Scully has had solo exhibitions in leading museums around the world including, most recently, Bucerius Kunst Forum, Hamburg; Art Museum of Sichuan Conservatory of Music, Chengdu; Parrish Art Museum, Long Island; Daegu Art Musem, Korea; Fundació Catalunya La Pedrera, Barcelona (all 2025); Centre Pompidou, Paris; Broadway, New York; He Art Museum, Shunde; Chateau d’Oiron, France; Eglise Saint-Nicholas de Caen, Normandy; Hungarian National Gallery, Budapest; Ludwig Museum, Koblenz (2024); Passerelle Centre d’art contemporain, Brest; Collection Lambert, Avignon; Houghton Hall, UK (all 2023); the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia; Thorsvaldens Museum, Copenhagen; MAMbo, Bologna; Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb; CSW, Torun, Poland (all 2022). 

Scully’s work is represented in the collections of The Guggenheim Museum, New York; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Hirshhorn Museum, Washington; Philadelphia Museum of Art; The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Fort Worth; Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas; National Gallery of Australia; Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen K20/K21, Düsseldorf; Tate Gallery, London; Hugh Lane Gallery; Irish Museum of Modern Art and National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin, amongst many others.