Sean Scully - New Now: Modern & Contemporary Art New York Wednesday, September 25, 2024 | Phillips

New Now: Modern & Contemporary Art

New York Auction 25 September 2024

  •  “When you paint a checkerboard, you have to paint without direction. When you paint a stripe, there’s a tautology.”
    —Sean Scully    Sean Scully’s Untitled, 1991, is a triumphant transitional work, incorporating both the stripes characteristic of Scully’s 1980s paintings with the checkerboard-like patterns that emerged in his work in the early 1990s. Presented side-by-side, the two modalities are united by the soft blend of colors that is a hallmark of pastel. Hints of red emerge from the black and cream vertical stripes, while light flecks of paper emerge amidst the red and black grid. 

     

    While variations on stripes have been explored by other notable artists such as Frank Stella and Agnes Martin, discovering the checkerboard composition marked a significant breakthrough in Scully’s practice and set him apart from his contemporaries. “Breaking the stripe made the checkerboard possible, because then I’m already dividing up the surface in a way the obliged me to paint without direction,” the artist recalled. “When you paint a checkerboard, you have to paint without direction. When you paint a stripe, there’s a tautology.”i With the horizontal pit against the vertical, Untitled encourages the eye to bounce across its sonorous composition.

     

    Frank Stella, Them Apples, 1958, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Image: National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., Gift of Lawrence Rubin, 1990.132.1, Artwork: © 2024 Frank Stella / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

    The work’s geometric structure, however, is rounded by the artist’s gestural mark making and use of a raw edge. As John Yau identifies: “Hovering between strict order and complete disarray, with the latter seemingly about to gain the upper hand, Scully’s paintings, pastels and watercolors accept the inevitability of time’s dissembling power, even as they resist succumbing to chaos.”i Yau further identifies Scully's use of “bricks” as a key element for shaping the passing of time. The form first emerged after Scully spent time in Mexico, influenced by the architecture of its ancient temples, and evolved to consider more proximal references like the stone walls ubiquitous in the artist’s native Ireland. The loose architectural motif deftly captures the essence of passing time’s relative structure but perceived fluidity.

    “It’s not a question of making something perfect, it’s a question of making something true.”
    —Sean Scully

    Using abstraction to represent emotions and convey lived experience, Scully’s works arrive at something deeper, and, in a sense, more real than pure representation. Supremely evocative, the subdued palette epitomizes Scully’s interest in tonality and intuitive ability to shape color to convey truths. In Scully’s own words: “It’s not a question of making something perfect, it’s a question of making something true. Something that can reflect the dimensionality of the human spirit within the grid of our world. We have more than one soul.”iii

     

    i Sean Scully, quoted in Sean Scully: The Shape of Ideas, p. 61.

    ii John Yau, Sean Scully: night and day, exh. cat., Cheim & Read, New York, 2013, n.p.

    iii Sean Scully, quoted in Sean Scully: The Shape of Ideas, p. 43.

    • Provenance

      Galerie Lelong, Paris
      Private Collection, Hong Kong
      Sotheby’s, London, July 2, 2009, lot 233
      Private Collection, New York
      Christie’s, New York, May 14, 2014, lot 495
      Private Collection
      Sotheby’s, New York, November 18, 2016, lot 481
      Casterline Goodman Gallery, Aspen
      Private Collection, New York
      Acquired from the above by the present owner

19

Sean Scully

Untitled

signed and dated "Sean Scully 8.20.91" lower right
pastel on paper
39 1/2 x 59 in. (100.33 x 149.86 cm)
Executed in 1991.

Full Cataloguing

Estimate
$200,000 - 300,000 

Sold for $215,900

Contact Specialist

Avery Semjen
Specialist, Head of New Now Sale
T +1 212 940 1207
asemjen@phillips.com
 

New Now: Modern & Contemporary Art

New York Auction 25 September 2024