This weekend, it’s on display at the Minerva Suite in the RDS, Dublin. The catalogue describes it as “visually bracing”. At just over a metre square, it is composed of oblong blocks of colour: “Bursts of pure green, red and yellow, with passages of mixed hues, tending towards oranges and pinks and blacks.”
Sean Scully is the world’s most bankable Irish artist. His current international record is for Song (1985), which sold for US$1,872,260 (€1,872,260) at Sotheby’s, New York, in 2022. His Irish record is for Raval Rojo (2004), which fetched €580,000 at Morgan O’Driscoll’s last year.
Sean Scully achieved the almost impossible — he took on the international art world and won
Scully was born in Dublin in 1945, but moved to London with his family in 1949. He grew up poor, spent his formative years in the UK and emigrated to New York in 1979.
Then, Sean Scully achieved the almost impossible — he took on the international art world and won. He’s now considered one of the leading abstract painters of his generation. This was a rags-to-riches journey that required toughness and determination, as well as talent.
Scully owns homes in Bavaria, Berlin, London, Munich and New York, but identifies as Irish. His work is on permanent display in the Sean Scully room at the Hugh Lane Gallery in Dublin. In 2006, Scully donated eight paintings to the gallery and has since added to the collection. The gifts were generous but also strategic — they cemented his identity as an Irish artist.
Scully began his career by painting stripes. His early works were very measured and painted in a restrained palette. Now, he paints oblong shapes and his colours become stronger and more vibrant with every passing year. Scully has been described as “the bricklayer of the soul.”
Raval Rojo (2004) by Sean Scully, which was sold in 2023 by Morgan O’Driscoll
In 2019, art critic Jonathan Jones wrote in The Guardian: “There’s an earthy rawness to Scully’s colours that insists on a fierce emotional encounter between him and the world.” His paintings are an arrangement of coloured rectangles but “instead of emphasising minimalist geometry, Scully messes it up, smearing paint in bursts of intense feeling that linger on in each rough stain of juicy brushwork.”
“It’s very rare for any Scully’s oil-on-canvas paintings to turn up at auction in Ireland,” O’Driscoll says. “This is the second one I’ve had in the past two years.”
Both came from the Kerlin Gallery in Dublin, which is where you go if you want to buy a new work by Scully. The one that sold at auction last year — Raval Rojo (2004) — was purchased in 2005 and spent 18 years in an Irish collection. It was a large (92 x 102 cm) oil-on-linen and went to auction with an estimate of €400,000 to €600,000.
“There were Irish bidders up to the lower estimate, after that it was international.” Eventually, the painting sold to a US collector.
There’s no cheap way of getting a Sean Scully but, if don’t have half a million to spare, there are other options in the sale
The current painting, Wall Dark Green (2021), also oil-on-linen, is similar in size (101.6 x 101.6 cm). “Scully makes lots of very large works – some are two or three metres – and they look better in galleries or public spaces,” O’Driscoll says.
“This one is of a scale that can work in someone’s house.” The two paintings were made 17 years apart and, although the block-shaped format is consistent, Scully’s palette has become stronger and more vibrant. “It jumps at you. It’s a powerful piece and the colours are fantastic.” Painted in 2021, it’s the newest Sean Scully to appear at public auction.
There’s no cheap way of getting a Sean Scully but, if don’t have half a million to spare, there are other options in the sale. Untitled 9.2.83 (1983) (Lot 34: est €40,000 to €60,000) is an oil pastel on paper, dating from his early years in New York.
Scully has famously claimed that the iconic cerulean blue in these works came from his childhood tricycle. Enter Six (1998) (Lot 29: est €10,000 to €15,000) is a folio of six etchings, aquatints on Somerset white, each numbered 12 from an edition of 40. Lillian #4 (2010) (Lot 42: est €6,000 to €9,000) is a lithograph, numbered 28 from an edition of 40.
See morganodriscoll.com
